6/18/21 Texas to Allow People to Own and Carry Guns without Permit or Training

It's called "constitutional carry" by its advocates and idiocy by everyone else, but the Texas bill allows you, me, and Homer Simpson to buy guns without paying $40 for a permit OR getting any training whatsoever in how to use them. Training should be voluntary, according to the gun rights people.

This foolish law makes the state immeasurably more dangerous to those who live in it -- a fact that police officers have pointed out repeatedly, in Texas and other states.

Maybe people can stay safer by exchanging pandemic isolation with gun-fear isolation, shopping remotely and staying indoors. Still, your crazy neighbor can buy just about any assault rifle there is, and those suckers can send a bullet through the walls of an average house. Or so I hear.

Mercifully, Texans still won't be able to carry guns in schools, hospitals, and some other public places, and private businesses can ban gun carriers from coming into their establishments.

If you're still not sure that Texas is in the grip of rabidly right-wing politicians, the state also just passed a law that forbids pension funds and other state-run investors to put money into companies that want to find alternatives to fossil fuels.

Can you believe these jackasses?

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Gov-Abbott-signs-constitutional-carry-bill-16253153.php?fbclid=IwAR3AjwETzon7-UI8lHGeUU3kqutij0Z1lKDn7P21T3WHkCttzwlAAtDbCXI

6/17/21 Texas Nixes Teaching Bad Things About White History

Texas has a well-earned reputation for a certain spin in its history textbooks -- a boosterish, hero-worshipping, white-centered picture that promotes a politically conservative point of view.

In one text I read, for example, a box explained that if only Russia's serfs had held out a little longer, the Tsar's peasant reforms would've taken shape, and the people would be better off now than they became after the Revolution.

The state has some odd little rules too, such as an instruction to teachers not to say things that make capitalism look bad. Ladies and gents, I s**t you not.

On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott signed in a whole 'nother passel of teacher-muzzling restrictions in response to the 1619 Project. Concisely, teachers are now forbidden to discuss the social implications of race.

The bill says that social studies (read: history) teachers in public schools “may not be compelled” to talk about controversial historical, social, or policy issues. If they do, they have to explain the issue “without giving deference to any one perspective.”

The wording, as one teacher-turned-lawmaker put it, is "clever": “You can talk about race in the classroom, but you can’t talk about privilege ... the idea is to put in landmines so any conversation about race in the classroom would be impossible.”

The law should get a gold star in the Annals of Unenforceable Laws. While virtually every Republican in the statehouse voted yea, the law's purpose above all seems to be turning the attention of furious parents away from complaining to lawmakers and turning it instead to complaining about teachers if they don't like what a teacher says in the classroom.

The law will probably put a damper on the more outspoken teachers. Fact is, a lot of Texas teachers were themselves Texas public school students, so it's hard to say how many are fully versed in the nuances of the 1619 project. It's pretty clear, though, that most teachers are taking the law as a challenge they'll beat. Because -- really.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-republicans-ban-teachers-racism_n_60b18524e4b06da8bd76bf50?fbclid=IwAR2ts4xqoJVjfBmSB8UBYQS5nyJWk55Tu7zNuKjtVCx1EdwxGKoM-heGNVc

6/18/21 Rep. Clyde Meets a 1/6 Defender in a Capitol Elevator

Congress has awarded its Congressional Gold Medal to those who defended the Capitol on January 6. There will be three group medals, one for the Capitol police, one for the District of Columbia police, and one for other groups who played a part in the Capitol's defense.

The House vote was not unanimous: 21 Republican legislators voted No. One of them was Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.). He was the one who claimed that "If you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit."

Michael Fanone, a DC police officer, was not in a hallway where the invaders stayed between velvet ropes; he was getting a life-threatening beating outside the Capitol entrance. He was also in the Capitol building on the day after the medal vote, and he found himself in an elevator with Representative Clyde. He told the story to Don Lemon, a CNN newsman, on "Don Lemon Tonight."

"I was very cordial," Fanone said. "I extended my hand to shake his hand. He just stared at me. I asked if he was going to shake my hand, and he told me that he didn't who know I was.

"So I introduced myself. I said that I was Officer Michael Fanone. That I was a DC Metropolitan Police officer who fought on January 6 to defend the Capitol and, as a result, I suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as a heart attack after having been tased numerous times at the base of my skull, as well as being severely beaten," Fanone said. "At that point, the congressman turned away from me."

Fanone said that when the elevator door opened, Clyde "ran...like a coward."

Is anyone surprised?

While we're on the subject, here's a quote from David Gosar, a brother of Rep. Paul Gosar, another Republican who voted Nay: "I'd like to thank Officer Fanone ... and the other Capitol Hill police officers for their bravery and heroism on that day....And on behalf of the actual sane members of our family, which is everyone but Paul, we apologize ... for his despicable comments and disgraceful conduct through this whole incident." That's from Politico, "GOP hands Dems a new line of attack," 6/17/21.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/16/politics/michael-fanone-us-capitol-insurrection-cnntv/index.html?fbclid=IwAR14vezGJwxaeb8pcK_iuQvzwYAHFr9alqNBYz-zUDqFV6J9DJf1lll3e-0

6/18/21 "Curses! Foiled Again!" Says GOP, as SCOTUS Upholds Obamacare for the Third Time

The enemies of the Affordable Care Act -- that legislation that provides access to health insurance to all U.S. citizens and legal resident -- have once again lost a legal battle in the Supreme Court. This time, the Court dismissed the carefully groomed case because the plaintiffs had no skin in the game.

"We conclude that the plaintiffs in this suit failed to show a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendants' conduct in enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional," wrote Stephen Breyer in his opinion for the majority. "They have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the Act's minimum essential coverage provision." Justices Alito and Gorsuch dissented.

So now, presumably, the GOP's misanthropes in the various states that brought the lawsuit are “standing” around with cocktails saying, "Standing? We don't have standing?! As if the very nation is not harmed by Obamacare. Why, the very principles on which this nation stands...!" Or maybe they're more interesting in real life.

In any case, they'll have to be pretty creative to come up with another SCOTUS-worthy argument. The first lawsuit brought by the anti-ACA crowd was a bid to have the "individual coverage mandate" declared unconstitutional. That mandate levied a tax penalty on any American who didn't buy health insurance. The Supreme Court let the mandate stand.

Then the GOP-led Senate slashed the actual tax penalty to 0%, and a second lawsuit went up the legal ladder, arguing that if there was no tax, there was no legal reason for the mandate. This time the Supreme Court agreed that the mandate was unconstitutional, but said that the lack of the mandate was no reason to strike down the whole dang law.

Obamacare lived to fight another day. That fight, of course, led to the decision released Thursday.

Now, with three opinions from SCOTUS, the law that 31 million Americans rely on for their health insurance is looking pretty solid. Let's hope it stays that way!

Do you think that Obamacare is just as good as Medicare for All? Should the subsidies be higher? Should the insurance be free?

Can you think of any other way that right-wing thinkers could fight the law? Do you think the conservatives on the Court are surprising the conservatives who appointed them?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/17/politics/supreme-court-affordable-care-act-obamacare/index.html?fbclid=IwAR06jqnjvYf-HD7AKZKazoErNMaKokyeAl3bOYx6ARvg99GVz_AF5bxPZ4s

6/17/21 Notorious Baker Fined $500 for Refusing to Make Gender-Transition Cake

On Wednesday, Denver District Court Judge Bruce Jones added another layer to the saga of cake discrimination by Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker. The judge ordered his bakery to pay $500 in restitution to Autumn Scardina, a would-be customer, for violating Colorado's anti-discrimination laws; Phillips refused to bake Scardina a pink-with-blue-icing gender-transition celebration cake.

You may remember the Masterpiece Cake Shop, Phillips's shop, from a previous incident in which he refused to make a cake celebrating a gay wedding. That was in 2012. The following lawsuit made lots of headlines, and eventually, the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that Phillips's right to free speech had been violated. He went back to his bakery. There's no word on the status of the happy couple.

Well, hold on to your butter, because five years later, but still a year before the Supreme Court ruling, Scardina asked Masterpiece Cake Shop to make her gender-transition cake. Again, Jack Phillips, co-owner, refused. Scardina sued under state civil rights laws, and Phillips counter-sued the state, but after the Supreme Court ruling, the state and the baker agreed to drop the matter.

Then along came 2019 and a second suit from Scardina, who used different state laws from the first suit. Long story shorter, Phillips was back in hot water, with Scardina was determined to put the icing on her fight against discrimination. Phillips is appealing the case.

Let's hope they cook up a solution before the whole issue goes stale -- again.

What is the deal with this baker? Why can’t he just bake the cakes his customers order and just stop being so nosy? Someone wanted a pink cake with blue icing. Big deal. Did he really have to ask what the occasion was, so he could decide to judge it? Or did Scardina really have to go to this one baker who was already being sued?

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/558849-court-fines-baker-500-for-refusing-to-make-gender-transition-cake?fbclid=IwAR3vbYW7qg-hcr5Z925R5t7DtdnO_XXqmXBr4gRouWMf5oxyJmIVcRZKLqc

6/15/21: Texas's Grid Is About to Go Up in Smoke -- Again!

Texas Governor Gregg Abbott saw fit last week to declare the Texas power grid "fixed."

It's true -- as long as "fixed" doesn't mean "repaired." The grid was fixed (meaning “had predetermined results”) from the start, when Texas decided to go solo with its energy grid rather than hooking up to the national grid -- that way, the state wouldn't have to keep up with pesky standards and public accountability.

In saying what he did, the governor played up to the far-right crackpots who insist on making Texas what it is today, a one-liner with hella-hot weather.

One could charitably question whether Abbott knew about the numerous and ongoing repairs that are not under a central authority, repairs that have now prompted the ordinarily silent ERCOT -- the Electronic Reliability Council of Texas (don't laugh!) -- to say "Please, people, turn down your air conditioners this weekend!"

About 11,000 megawatts' worth of generators is under repair, ERCOT says. In 2018, demand spiked at 69,123 megawatts. On Monday, demand is supposed to top 73,000 megawatts, and all the while, those generator operators are going to be out there in their overalls with wrenches sticking out of every pocket and a bandanna to wipe the sweat off their brows. Why not? Nobody's watching.

No, in answer to your question, I have no idea how generators run. I just have an idea of how Texas runs, and I picture those mechanics kicking the side of a metal building to see if it's working now, only to see a rising puff of black smoke. Seen too many movies, I guess.

“We will be conducting a thorough analysis with generation owners to determine why so many units are out of service,” says Woody Rickerson, vice president of ERCOT’s grid planning and operations. “This is unusual for this early in the summer season.”

At least most of the cars in Texas have air conditioning. This could be the weekend that the state finally gets on the road. Unlike the winter freeze, there won't be veterans desperately trying to run portable oxygen tanks off car batteries because the roads are too icy to drive to a hospital. That happened in Houston this year. The guy didn't make it.

If stuff like that doesn't make you want to roar with rage like a gorilla, you might be a Texas Republican.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texans-conserve-energy-power-grid-struggles_n_60c7c8b1e4b0e25921b6ccdd?fbclid=IwAR3qdZ6DDebqgucwZKFnX4y7vwEiheOsgrjQi43J_eAzS9hi78EeV_u0KRc

6/16/21 Juneteenth is Finally Becoming a Federal Holiday!

Two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the news, traveling slowly, finally reached the island of Galveston in southern Texas. On that day, June 19th, 1865, Union Major-General Gordon Granger read General Order No. 3 there in public:

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor...."

Texas has been celebrating "June teenth" ever since, pausing only for World War II. Think "Fourth of July," and you have the idea. Subsequently, Black groups bought land for parks to celebrate -- Houston's and Austin's Emancipation Parks and Booker T. Washington Park in Mexia.

Juneteenth ("Emancipation Day") has been a state holiday in Texas since 1980 -- and is a holiday in a few other states.

Now, however, the U.S. Senate has unanimously voted to make June 19th a federal holiday, one of eleven on the annual calendar. (Only federal employees have the day off so far.) As soon as the House votes Yea and President Biden signs the bill, it'll be official.

It's about time!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senate-passes-juneteenth-national-holiday_n_60c915dde4b09ba204a9d24b?fbclid=IwAR01GgEZNOGHtkNkGMnGs2YgvvcwK7Ul12oTHCrx-0bexHBIhRQLuVknAIk

6/16/21 Election-Fraud Pressure Continued in DOJ After Barr Resigned

It's almost hard to believe how hard the Trump administration tried to get the Department of Justice to back his claim of election fraud.

First, that Bill Barr, who went along with so many of Trump's wishes, quit his job, saying "Fuhgeddaboudit, Biden won," after two months of pressure to say otherwise by Trump, Giuliani, and chief of staff Mark Meadows over the election results.

Secondly, that Trump & friends started harassing Barr's replacement on the same point before the man was even sworn in. “Cover-up is Happening regarding the voting machines in Michigan,” headed up the email Jeffrey Rosen received, which included the instruction that Michigan could not certify for Biden.

Thirdly, that Trump almost kicked Rosen out of office a month later, in early January, for failing to take up Trump's lost cause. Now, Congress is burrowing into the topsy-turvy Trump DOJ to find out more about the many howlers it committed under the worst president in the history of the United States.

Rosen will speak to congressional investigators, and he has asked other DOJ honchos to tell him what he can divulge.

This is a need-to-know for all of us.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-doj-emails-2020-election_n_60c89e16e4b02df18f806fdc?fbclid=IwAR0MqeZSNc3Qal8ubFl5MXDPzl1s-aFpsHhe3Rvm2lXX6AM8_015o82_uEA

6/15/21 DOJ & the Subpoenas of Reporter’s Records: How Did an Eminent Law Professor Become a Stooge for Trump?

You’re probably aware that Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed records from Congresspeople and reporters. (They said they were looking for a leak, but “perhaps” they were spying on their rivals.) The story is growing & looking worse every day.

Let’s focus in one person at the center of the subpoenas: John Demers. He resigned Monday. But he always planned to leave at the end of June, the Department of Justice rushed to say. So John Demers is not getting the bum's rush, even though he deserves it just based on how much he was willing to ignore to go along with Trump's surveillance on congress members and journalists.

As assistant attorney general for national security, Demers carried the ball for demands for those records, which included phone records, email header records, and possibly more, depending on whom was targeted. Add to that the gag orders that kept the requests top secret, so that the targets didn't know, let alone the press.

Demers is a top-tier egghead by anyone's definition. Lots of people go to Harvard Law, as he did, but CNN tells us Demers clerked for Antonin Scalia, and was an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, where he taught about national security. He was a Veep and assistant general counsel at Boeing. He has been in and out of the DOJ since 2003. Why he agreed when Trump tapped him for the DOJ again in 2018 -- he's supposed to be smart! -- is anybody's guess.

Demers landed at DOJ the same month that subpoenas went out to Apple asking for none-of-your-business information on individuals on Trump's radar. That request included phone data for not only House Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff, but for his staffers and even his family. That is seriously out of orbit for American tradition. Mind you, email has not got a long tradition, but a keen legal mind like Demers's could certainly have drawn an inference or two that you Just. Do. Not. Do. That. Unlike Trump, we know Demers has read the Constitution.

Maybe Demers swayed and bent and changed his standards right alongside his fellow Republicans. Whatever he did, he's the one under scrutiny now.

So you think that the DOJ expected these investigations to stay secret forever? Did they think that if information about the investigations went public, that it would be no big deal, that they would just apologize? Were laws broken, or just traditions? Should lawmakers step in to manage the DOJ's standards?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/14/politics/john-demers-justice-department-leave/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2idG40gWDMLA_qxKeY9C47VUyMjnRENSeNvPoPAI72W5K_p1T3oo5ImPc

6/12/21 Teen Who Filmed George Floyd's Death Wins a Pulitzer

It takes a steady hand and a sturdy backbone to do what Darnella Frazier did the day George Floyd was murdered. Standing directly in front of Derek Chauvin while he knelt on George Floyd's neck, Frazier kept recording video while Chauvin shouted for her to stop.

She made the news that shaped the year for Americans, inspiring a surge of protests that showed, in tear gas and brutality, how the administration of Donald Trump dealt with inconvenient people and inconvenient ideas. She changed our history.

Darnella Frazier was awarded a special Pulitzer prize for her extraordinary video of George Floyd's death in St. Louis on May 25, 2020.

Frazier wrote on Instagram, “Even though this was a traumatic life-changing experience for me, I’m proud of myself. If it weren’t for my video, the world wouldn’t have known the truth.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/briefing-room/558019-teen-who-filmed-floyd-murder-awarded-honorary-pulitzer?fbclid=IwAR0oXXEHVDgAJLa7cA2r0f2_DwZ8oTd4K8E-iUKHQkDhTOVJ40zDRLRGcic

6/14/21 No Jab, No Job. Judge Dismisses Houston Nurses' Vaccination Lawsuit

There's this thing called groupthink, see, where you and your friends get uber-sympatico and don't need or want outside opinions.

In this category we can place Jennifer Bridges, a strapping, healthy nurse, and 116 of her colleagues at Houston Methodist Hospital. They decided that they didn't want to take the health risk associated with a COVID19 vaccination. Another 54 staffers didn't want

You know, THAT vaccination. The one that finally ended the government's COVID lockdown and isolation. The one that's safer than almost any vaccine in history. The one that more than 300 million people have had in the United States alone.

The hospital's stance: To continue to work at Houston Memorial, the management said, the employees had to have the vaccine.

"Experimental and dangerous!" the plantiffs said of the vaccine They said it was like the "forced medical experimentation during the Holocaust."

That was a step too far for Lynn Hughes, the U.S. District Court judge, who threw out the case on Saturday. Comparisons with the Holocaust are "reprehensible," she wrote. The hospital wasn't asking them to do anything criminal -- if it were, their jobs would be protected. But for this? Nope.

It was the same judge who'd refused to grant the group a restraining order so they could have more time to -- I dunno, think?

Fortunately for the hospital, the 117 employees amount to less than one half of one percent of the total staff.

The plaintiffs plan to file an appeal.

6/23/21 UPDATE! Remember those health-care employees of Houston Methodist Hospital who didn't want COVID vaccinations? The ones who compared forced vaccination to Nazi medical experiments? Now, 153 are ex-employees, having failed to get their shots by the hospital's deadline. Doofuses all!

Article: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/13/us/houston-methodist-covid-vaccine-lawsuit/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2oF_2WkyRGeOI9NOLDgkwLKkRtg-MtbRSVOT5UKXrAZo43ANNGfQ9zuUM

Update: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/health/article/More-than-150-Houston-Methodist-employees-resign-16266440.php?sid=5dc30632fc942d1f403e32c0&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=news_a&utm_campaign=HC_MorningReport&fbclid=IwAR3IxnHT_GRS9mOeRio1sNtt__SAqx0TjNQfWQOsve1hMMnO0JOj9OlIYgE

6/14/21 Delta Deals With Three Violent Passengers in Two Weeks

Delta has had its share of in-flight spats recently. First there was the ticked-off passenger who slugged a flight attendant, costing her two teeth. Then there was some knucklehead who wanted into the cockpit, possibly because he thought they had better coffee.

And now this guy, an off-duty flight attendant named Stephon Jamar Duncan, age 34. We don't know what mental or emotional trauma he was suffering, but “He had been acting really weird,” said one passenger. "He was wearing a helmet. He basically walked up and down the row opening up every overhead bin.”

Then Duncan went up to the intercom and made an announcement: Passengers were to go back to their seats and prepare to put on their oxygen masks.

Then he tried to open the airplane door. At that point the on-duty flight attendants realized that if they wanted to go all the way to Atlanta, they were going to have to get physical.

There was another announcement: All "strong males" were wanted to handle "a problem passenger." Several volunteers answered.

The plane landed in Oklahoma City, where authorities got Duncan off the plane by zip tying his wrists and ankle and carrying him foot first to the exit.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/delta-flight-diverted-off-duty-flight-attendant_n_60c5fee8e4b0d27e3d04c448?fbclid=IwAR3AjwETzon7-UI8lHGeUU3kqutij0Z1lKDn7P21T3WHkCttzwlAAtDbCXI

6/14/21 50 Years After the Pentagon Papers, the Press Faces A Different Threat

It was June 13, 1971 when the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, an avalanche of secret government documents about the Vietnam War. It blew the lid off the stories that the federal government was telling about their reason for pursuing the war.

“Yes, everybody was lying but for different reasons and for different causes," says Daniel Ellsberg, who copied and distributed the papers. "In particular, a very large range of high-level doves ... were lying to the public to give the impression that they were supporting the president ... they would have spoken out at the cost of their jobs and their future careers."

The reckoning included Richard Nixon's resignation from the Presidency, and a wariness about government secrets that still feeds Americans' conspiracy thinking.

*

Today, Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland will huddle with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN, which didn't exist 50 years ago, to talk about the excesses of the Trump Department of Justice.

Starting in 2017, Trump's DOJ demanded information about individual journalists who had made the President angry in some way, or whom Trump suspected knew the sources of embarrassing leaks from his administration.

Running down personal information on reporters is seedy to begin with, but Trump's DOJ had no scruples. They demanded phone and email records and used gag orders to silence the people they leaned on to obtain those records.

"Whether Merrick Garland knows the details of how that came about, we don't know, but we're certainly going to ask," says CNN's Washington bureau chief.

Biden's attorney general has already said that the DOJ will not be using such tactics -- but the publishers want a change in policy that will stick if another lout ascends to the presidency. We can only say, Godspeed.

What do you expect to hear from Garland? Should Congress pass laws that protect journalists from rogue Administrations in the future? How badly did Trump’s DOJ overstep? How bad was the cover-up?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/13/media/merrick-garland-trump-doj-media-probe/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1ilqSPgL4Ptju8n_HiGCpzhBqxsi-eAeun11q6fsLlHY5xsD-So_YT3d8

6/9/21 White House Gives Up on Infrastructure Talks with Senator Capito

The White House and Shelly Capito -- that other Republican senator from West Virginia -- have been talking for weeks, trying to get to Yes on Biden's infrastructure bill. Finally, though, the administration has decided that those talks have been going nowhere, and slowly at that.

The sticking points: The Republicans just don't want to spend big bucks on infrastructure. They also wanted to fund the bill from what's left of the COVID19 economic stimulus money, and they have steadfastly refused to raise taxes. Biden wants to raise taxes on people making more than $400,000 a year, and increase corporate taxes part way back to where they were just a few months ago.

Biden's team will instead work with a bipartisan group of senators: Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and other Senate moderates, such as Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

The senators are aiming to release a proposal by the end of the week.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/557417-white-house-to-end-infrastructure-talks-with-capito-shift-focus-to?fbclid=IwAR0i1cZQgJaLp9VTXJDMMdKDlwXMLmlXe2DJWxQ0QaLZboxW6ROsEzneSyo

6/11/21 Good News! The Keystone Pipeline's Dead

Joe Biden got to work the very day he was inaugurated, and one of his first actions was to cancel the permit allowing construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Designed to carry great gobs of oil from Canadian tar fields to the Gulf of Mexico, the pipeline had bedeviled Native Americans and environmentalists, had prompted Republican legislatures to make some protests illegal, and otherwise caused grief for anyone standing within a hundred miles of the project.

Now, TC Energy, the Canadian firm behind the project, has finally given up. On Wednesday, the company said it would work with all the necessary parties to "ensure a safe termination of and exit from the project.”

Then, like a miracle, it'll be gone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/business/keystone-xl-pipeline-canceled.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210610&instance_id=32671&nl=the-morning&regi_id=86904976&segment_id=60329&te=1&user_id=9eedf77d8afca88a98053cf5b3cb2c1b&fbclid=IwAR2dJsrPIf0ok389fUXgE6cnwIqVlNwI7Ee7ff45i_tpz-zH0UISXN4E-S0

6/11/21 FDA Advisor Resigns Over Alzheimer's Drug Approval

A Mayo Clinic neurologist resigned from the FDA's Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee yesterday after the FDA approved an Alzheimer's drug over the panel's recommendation.

To hear the doc, David Knopman, explain it, the resignation was practically noble. "... if I ever were asked to serve on a future panel, I wouldn't have wanted to be treated in the disrespectful way that the aducanumab external advisers were treated," he said in an email to CNN. Translation: He's pissed off that the FDA overruled him.

In fact, it's rare for the FDA to ignore a recommendation. In this case, nobody knows whether the drug, to be called Aduhelm, makes any difference. It wasn't until the drug maker, Biogen, reanalyzed the drug trial results that anybody thought that giving it to patients was a good idea. Biogen now says it seems to slow down memory decline if it's given in large doses.

Biogen has priced the drug at $56,000 a year. For a drug that doesn't produce obvious results, that's a lot. It's more than half the cost of a full year in a private room in a fancy nursing home, according to a company called Genworth (https://www.genworth. com/aging-and-you /finances/cost-of-care.html).

But this is Alzheimer's, society's most expensive illness, which afflicts six million mostly elderly people in the United States alone. Nobody has come up with a new drug in 17 years. In an aging population, the need for a treatment is dire.

It's regrettable that this drug is not a treatment. You have to wonder whether money changed hands somewhere along the path to approval.

I'd say to David Knopman that there's plenty of reasons to resign over FDA's approval that have nothing to do with feeling you've been dissed. Update: Two more advisors have since resigned.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/health/fda-adviser-resigns-alzheimers/index.html?fbclid=IwAR35nMJCCbCNJpETkYqaTHYwDvqYE6wNmk_s78nL3hUqgB2a6TvwBPSxuw0

6/8/21 Manchin Chooses Bipartisanship Over Voting Rights

Partisanship is bad. Bipartisanship is good. But is that a good enough reason to deep-six the "For the People" Voting Rights Bill?"

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia says yes. Manchin sees a deep crevasse between the nation's two parties, and he thinks that pushing the bill through would make things even worse. He explained it all in an opinion piece in West Virginia's most prominent newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

"Today’s debate about how to best protect our right to vote and to hold elections ... is not about finding common ground, but seeking partisan advantage," Manchin wrote. "Partisan policymaking won’t instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it."In a state that went for Trump by 40%, this may have readers nodding their heads. The rest of us are clutching at our hearts. What is WRONG with this guy?

Turns out Manchin favors The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It "would update the formula states and localities must use to ensure proposed voting laws do not restrict the rights of any particular group or population," says Manchin. That, and Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, likes it too. Bipartisan support! Hurrah!

But the John Lewis Act has already tanked twice on its way to the Senate. That's why the For the People Act was written. Manchin just doesn't want to move on.

"I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act," Manchin wrote. "Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster."

That puts Biden and the rest of the Democrats in a legislative bind they didn't see coming. After all, the Senate is nominally 50-50. It's only now that we know that it's really 51-49, with Republicans in the majority. That's going to make every single initiative of the Biden administration much more difficult to pass.

Thanks a lot, Joe Manchin.

 

Do you think Joe Manchin is right about the effect of partisan politics?

Do you agree that bipartisanship is a bigger issue than the For the People Act?

Are you angry that a single senator is effectively blocking every legislative move the rest of the Democrats might make?

Summary: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/557223-the-memo-political-winds-shift-against-biden?fbclid=IwAR3Gcv-_Nu_5VWnFU0E6yew8UThMC1oRsI7Md6cHnL6p-zv6wgP84fxaX8Q

Manchin editorial: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/op_ed_commentaries/joe-manchin-why-im-voting-against-the-for-the-people-act/article_c7eb2551-a500-5f77-aa37-2e42d0af870f.html?fbclid=IwAR3qdZ6DDebqgucwZKFnX4y7vwEiheOsgrjQi43J_eAzS9hi78EeV_u0KRc

6/9/21 How the Wealthiest Americans Pay Next to Nothing in Taxes -- Legally

Everyone "knows" that the wealthy pay proportionately less in taxes than middle-income American workers. Now, an investigative reporting site called ProPublica.org is detailing how they do it.

"Certainly, there are illegal tax evaders among [the wealthy]," ProPublica says, "but it turns out billionaires don’t have to evade taxes exotically and illicitly — they can avoid them routinely and legally." ProPublica's source is an IRS trove of tax returns from the 25 wealthiest Americans over several years. ProPublica says it "obtained" the records, but not from whom.

The ultra-wealthy can become ever more wealthy without paying taxes because of the delayed taxation of capital gains. That is, if you own stock or property that skyrockets in value, you are that much richer, but you don't have to pay taxes on your burgeoning bucks until you actually sell the asset that has become more valuable.

At WRP, most of us know how this works. When Ritchie Rich sells, say, some shares of stock, he pays capital-gains taxes on the difference between the price when he bought it and the price he gets when he sells it -- and the capital gains tax rate is lower than it used to be.

ProPublica spends quite a bit of outrage on how little the zillionaires pay as an overall tax rate when their assets rise. It's a small fraction of what salary- and wage-earning workers pay in income taxes. Workers pay with every paycheck, but the wealthy, whose income derives from assets, can pick and choose when they want to make their assets liquid.

An example is Jeff Bezos of Amazon. ProPublica says, "for every $100 of wealth growth" from 2006 to 2018, "typical Americans paid $160 in taxes. Bezos paid only $1.09."

Before Ritchie Rich sells, he has the benefit of using his boku bucks as collateral to get loans at an ultra-low rate of interest. (You'll recall that loan rates are barely above zero these days.) That's a good way to avoid touching assets; a loan can go for spending money or for projects like adding a wing on the ol' family mansion.

Added to that, of course, are the deductions that the wealthy can take for donations. Warren Buffett, for instance, told ProPublica, “I believe the money will be of more use to society if disbursed philanthropically than if it is used to slightly reduce an ever-increasing U.S. debt.”

What does it all mean? It means that the U.S. is overdue for a tax overhaul. Because this way, nobody wealthy is paying "their fair share" of the cost of running the country.

The article link is below.

What would be a fair share for the wealthy to contribute in taxes?

What do you think the U.S. needs to do to make the tax rates more fair?

Should the U.S. tax the assets of the wealthy directly, whether the capital gains are realized or not?

How would you go about taxing a person who is not making a traditional income?

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax?fbclid=IwAR1WieU3fB3dMeDOjhbrYabbVu8cNY-R-VEw5qsfoHb7ZpjojG_pcBeBZBw