12/16/20: Insecurity: White House Health Insurance Leaves One Employee with a Pile of Debt

Crede Bailey, Chief of White House Security, was hospitalized in September for COVID19. He's getting better, but the disease cost him his right lower leg and left big toe. (COVID19 can affect blood vessels too.)

Bailey has spent three months and counting in what you might call the ‘Hotel Health Care.’ No matter what room, wing, or bungalow you're in, that ‘Hotel Health Care’ is more expensive than any other. Right now, Bailey's in a rehab facility to get used to a prosthetic leg and just four left toes.

What makes Bailey's story remarkable is not that he caught the virus in the White House, nor that he won his fight against the virus, nor the wounds he sustained from it.

What's remarkable is Bailey's health insurance. It's Trump-style, not the “conforming coverage” that Obamacare used to require. No one has yet reported on the company name or plan, but we do know that Bailey has a "crushing" load of bills to pay. Some health plans cover up to $1 million in expenses; some cover less. An Obamacare plan probably would not have left him holding that big a bag of debt.

Fortunately, Bailey's friends have set up a GoFundMe page for "Crede & Family," and it has met its goal of $50,000. As of early this evening, 645 donations have brought the total to $62,308. Donations range from $5 to $1,000. If the President donated, it was not under his own name.

What's happening when the head of White House Security has friends passing the hat for health care?

Is Trump squeezing the White House budget at the expense of White House employees?

Why aren't White House employees under the same plan as, say, members of Congress?

Trump’s White House policies helped spread COVID. Should Trump or the Government be liable for Bailey’s medical costs?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/12/14/white-house-security-director-suffers-amputations-three-month-hospital-stay-for-covid-19/?sh=1ef8b36b43f0&fbclid=IwAR0op3KzQB0lINSfnAsVoNz_qnNyGQutEzLpfYvVt2ljdTguiJehWMd3I58

12/14/20: What to Watch for as Electors Vote

The electors will vote on Monday! Here are five matters that those in the know will be looking for: 

--- Faithless electors. In 2020, seven electors went rogue. The Supreme Court has since said that states can punish electors if they vote for someone other than the candidate they were pledged to. 

--- Trump's mood. Trump is volatile these days. Will he go bonkers on Twitter again? Will he fire AG Barr in an email? Will he surprise everyone by giving Barron a puppy? 

--- Crowd conflict. How noisy will this electoral vote get? Will there be crowds outside every state legislature (where each state's electors gather to vote)? Will Michigan militiamen invade the state capitol again? Will unruly crowds throw rocks at capitol windows? 

--- Pandemic prep. How will each state handle COVID-19 risk? Will Trump electors walk around coughing ostentatiously near Biden electors? Will the states bar the maskless from the voting chamber? 

-- And finally .... Will this end the fight against the election results? Will Rudy Giuliani, ex-Mayor of New York, say anything sensible? Or will Chris Christie, ex-Governor of New Jersey, somehow find a way to hit Giuliani's mute button? 

I say, get out the popcorn and call it a circus -- rather than a real and terrifying challenge to our national dream of democracy. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/529853-five-things-to-watch-when-the-electoral-college-votes?fbclid=IwAR3z5O2F8COmJtVPZQalZGXsGlSk_4QDeNFCssGW4wO7ItxXkmgiJdO_RDk

12/15/20: Water Takes its Place in the Futures Market, Right Alongside Corn and Pork Bellies

In the last two years, the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index has made it possible for California to have its own spot-price water exchange, worth $1.1 billion. 

There's no fancy name for the units being traded, but each equals ten acre-feet of water -- about 3.26 million gallons. 

Monday, the water market opened upon the national commodities futures exchange. 

What's that? Apologies to those WRP members specialize in finance, but to explain to the rest of us: A commodities exchange is the place where companies can sell and buy stuff like pork bellies, wheat, oil, and gas.

Buyers want to lock in the future price of a product they need, so they won't get blindsided by sudden changes in price. 

Sellers are looking for a reliable price too. If they've sold a future barrel of wheat for whatever price, they'll be okay if the bottom drops out of the wheat market. (Remember a few years back when farmers suddenly weren't able to sell wheat abroad?)

A water exchange works in California, presumably, because of the contracts for specific amounts of water that farmers have held for years and sometimes generations. 

Water users along the Colorado River and on the Ogallala Aquifer have yet to try futures.

It's about time that someone updated those antique water agreements from generations past. 

https://markets.businessinsider.com/.../water-futures-to...

10/26/2020 Texas is Purple. Deal With It, Trumpers!

Biden is leading in Texas! So the polling of the polls tells us -- specifically, a Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll of close to 1,000 likely voters.

"The poll showed Biden with the support of 48 percent of likely voters, compared with 45 percent for Trump," Politico reported today. 

By now, at least 40% of all registered Texans have voted, and there's still another five days to go till early voting ends.  We've all heard that tons more Democrats than Republicans are voting by mail, but we haven't heard that the Democrats dominate early voting. (At least I haven't.) So maybe our country's prospects are looking up.

About three-quarters as many Texans have voted already than the number who voted in 2016. Add to that about 240 who voted over the course of five hours at the location where I hung out with Sri's mom and ample "Sri for Congress" and "Biden/Harris" signs. 

A good day at the polls feels like a festival, and this one was about halfway there. About 50 feet away was Trever Nehls, candidate for Fort Bend sheriff and twin brother to Sri's Republican opponent for Congress. We were having a conversation with the poor schmuck representing Sri's opposition when some old guy wobbled by on a bicycle and said "Go Trump!' 

In the spirit of the day, we waited till he was out of earshot before saying "And then keep going, and don't ever come back!" 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/25/texas-biden-trump-poll-432217?fbclid=IwAR1Rnoq4exrvhZ5wFHrAYVaSI3_CAqpugLKl3D2jj4om7nW6JKPilqEkDLI

12/13/20: The Terminator Comes to Life in Rudy Giuliani

Talk about resilience. Talk about plain dogged persistence. Rudy Giuliani, whom COVID19 could not kill, is forging ahead with the legal fight that will not die.

Giuliani, obviously, is the very first of the humanoids of relentless pursuit. He is the first true warrior in The Rise of the Machines. He is the Terminator, Prototype I.

You can tell him: "But Rudy -- the Supreme Court declined to hear 'the big one!'" He knows you mean the Texas-led lawsuit meant to disenfranchise four states that voted for Joe Biden.

Giuliani answered in a recent interview: “The case wasn’t rejected on the merits. The case was rejected on standing. So the answer to that is to bring the case now to the district court by the president, by some of the electors, alleging some of the same facts where there would be standing.”

He went on: “There’s nothing that prevents us from filing these cases immediately in the district court in which the president of course would have standing, some of the electors would have standing in that their constitutional rights have been violated.”

“We’re not finished [with election lawsuits],” he concluded. "Believe me.”

We do believe it, even though the electors will seal the election results on Monday.

Problem is, we can't predict what Trump and Trumpies might do next. Could Trump try to impeach electors? Is it possible that the electors and their families could be in danger from Trump's goofy bands of bullies? Could they hold families hostage till they get the results they want?

At this point, it seems, nothing is impossible.

Giuliani and Trump are trying to get tens of millions of votes thrown out. Voting is a critical right. But they don’t seem to care about our rights, do they? What do they care about? Is there any realistic possibility that they will target the electors next?

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/529928-giuliani-says-trump-team-not-finished-after-supreme-court-defeat?fbclid=IwAR1q7Pu5OK4LRqQIm8gveXsw8mPyRoR-lwREezWjKsKUYELaRfx-CrQI7Gs

12/13/20: Georgia Dems Will Win the Senate with the $15 Wage

The biggest bread-and-butter issue to Georgia's voters is the minimum wage, and Democrats will win the Senate if they commit to raising it to $15. 

That's according to one of the Patriotic Millionaires -- Stephen Prince, vice-chair of a group of that name, made up of wealthy Americans who worry about the effect of the country's lopsided distribution of power and wealth. 

"Make the race a referendum on the minimum wage, and Democrats will win," he writes. 

That is, Democrats need to "pledge to pass the Raise the Wage Act the day that Warnock and Ossoff are sworn in." 

Why? Well, it's a political winner. The day Florida gave Trump a 3.5 percent win over Biden, they voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by a full 20 percent margin. In the last decade, five other red states overwhelmingly voted yea to raising the wage. In the last 18 years, just ONE of 21 wage-increase initiatives won by less than 10 percent. (The article links to his sources.) 

In Georgia, a $15 wage would give raises to almost 35 percent of workers."That’s over 1.5 million people earning on average an extra $3,700 a year," Prince writes. 

We can add to that point: It's been noted that when low-income employees have money to spare, they spend it on items they've needed for a long time: a reliable car, a trip to the dentist, a new pair of shoes. Or even just a chance to buy better food. That is, the money goes directly into the economy. 

So far, neither candidate has made the $15 wage a centerpiece of his campaign, and that needs to change, Prince believes. 

He writes, "Their best hope for victory is to spend the next month and a half doing everything in their power to make their names synonymous with a $15 minimum wage." 

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/529946-to-win-georgia-and-the-senate-democrats-need-to-go-all-in-on-15-minimum-wage?fbclid=IwAR0V7Npg0cQIL1mTLAxCpkLLH6zA15MQnSm_UatCmPGXn5yVGrCERDSgIBY

12/12/20: Kaepernick Wins the Ultimate Liberal Tribute

Ben & Jerry's, the "aspiring social justice company" owned by Unilever, has honored another human rights icon, Colin Kaepernick, with his own flavor of frozen dessert. Starting next year, a frozen dessert named "Change the Whirled" will help raise funds for Kaepernick's non-profit "Know Your Rights" campaign for communities of color. 

The former NFL quarterback gained fame and infamy in 2016 by getting down on one knee during the National Anthem before each game. It was a respectful protest against police brutality, but it prompted white-hot outrage among conservatives, with President Trump beating the war drums. Gutless and greedy, the NFL shot-callers lined up behind the President -- and not coincidentally, their football-fan customers. 

Kaepernick was fired in 2016 and has never been rehired. Eric Reid, a player who knelt beside Kaepernick, was also fired, but he took the field as a Carolina Panther in 2018. 

About Change the Whirled: Kaepernick is vegan, and so is the frozen dessert. It's also non-dairy, based on caramel sunflower butter with bits of graham cracker, fudge, and chocolate cookie swirls. 

The new flavor "celebrates Kaepernick's courageous work to confront systemic oppression and to stop police violence against Black and Brown people," Ben & Jerry says. 

By the way, Kaepernick's name moves a lot of merchandise. After Nike put a Kaepernick-associated T-shirt on sale in September 2020, it sold out in under a minute. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ben-jerrys-colin-kaepernick-ice-cream-flavor/?fbclid=IwAR1ENaT_JWeVh4RpUvJdxJ3pOQydek9QUnEeJvNRsPbLEsiW-GAMjrZlFCU