Charlottesville right-wing terror event: Trump urged to single out white supremacists, neo-Nazis

GOP Senators and House members are calling upon President Donald Trump to publicly disavow white supremacists or white supremacy ideology and neo-Nazism tonight, after one woman was killed by a “vehicle” rampage apparently driven by a white supremacist today (the last allegation needs to be verified).  CNN’s story is here. The suspect is James Alex Fields from Ohio, charged with Second Degree Murder.

I was rather surprised to see the news this morning and note the violence of the demonstrations pick up, with police presence, resulting in cancellation of the march.

The motive for the demonstration had been related to a decision in the city to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park in Charlottesville.  There is an argument that the statute is part of history.

The UVa Cavalier Daily has video of the incident here. 

  

The Charlottesville Daily Progress has an account here, by time.  The incident apparently happened at about 1:30 PM.  I was in a movie theater, and did not learn of the event until later, after I got home, after 5 PM. I encountered some friends about 4:30 and the event was not mentioned. 

Charlottesville is supposed to celebrate gay pride in the park Sept. 16, 2017. 

Needless to say, the country still has to be very focused on North Korea.  

Space weather is back: Risk of damage to power grids from solar storms estimated at 7% over 10 years

The Weather Channel has reproduced a Reuters story by Deborah Zabarenko, “Solar Storms could knock out U.S. Power”, link. 

The story says that many coronal mass ejection events might cause voltage fluctuations leading to outages but stop short of massive transformer damage.  However, up to 365 major transformers in the U.S. could be in danger of needing replacement.

There is a 7% chance of a major event in the next ten years, as if this were “slight” in SPC terminology.

  

I passed the story along to Sinclair-owned television station WJLA this morning, hoping that the Weather Gang can cover space weather. 

"Leaked" federal report on climate change says "do not cite, quote, or distribute": The New York Times Climate Papers

A federal scientist(s) has released a climate change report before the Trump administration can hide or squash it.  Chris D’Angelo of the Huffington Post summarizes it here  and the New York Times has its own summary by Lisa Friedman, here. 

The Scribd PDF of the report on the NYTimes site is here  (you may encounter a paywall).

  

Is this Trump’s encounter with the Pentagon Papers?  Not exactly.  I don’t think this is classified or counts as a “leak”.  But the draft pages read “Do not cite, quote or distribute”.  Well, we disobeyed.

The temperature in the US has risen steadily since about 1980.  At current rates, average temperature in the US will rise by over 5 degrees F before 2100, and the absolute minimum with the best practices would be less than 1 degree.

The climate change is largely manmade and is more marked near the poles.  

Drop dead date on U.S. debt ceiling is September 29, 2017

I would normally add this to a previous post from July 23, but I noticed that talks between Congress and the White House on the debt ceiling seem to have stalled today.  The Washington Post is reporting now that the federal government would run out of money Friday September 29 (or is that Monday Oct. 2).  Default on a payment, the Post says, will cause a stock market crash and sudden rise in interest rates.

The brief story today by Damian Parletta in the Post is here. 

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Mike Mulvaney has come around to a clean increase in the debt ceiling, Yahoo Business Insider here. 

ABC News has a detailed recent explanation of the debt ceiling by Caroline Cohen and others, here. 

Jim Carney of the conservative Washington Examiner weighs in here on the "swamp". 

GOP's skinny care fails as McCain says no; Sounds like Milo's fat-shaming

Everybody knows that in the wee hours of the morning, Senator John McCain imitated Nancy Reagan with his “Just Say No”. 

Vox has a pretty complete analysis of the GOP losing streak on health care here.  Now, the baseball team seems to be the only good thing in Washington.

Truthout has a disturbing perspective on the use of civil obedience and “solidarity” that I watch but don’t to myself, here.

Skinny care indeed.  No shame about fat-shaming, as per Milo. 

Bur HRC was claiming credit by email today for its call-in drive, but it was mostly McCain who gets credit.  Two other Republicans voted no.  Susan Collins said she would not take away people's health insurance.  

The Nation doesn't give McCain that much credit "for not killing his constituents", but calls 49 Republican Senators cowards.

If you want to relieve younger adults with student loans from higher premiums, fine.  Them you have to increase subsidies, unconditionally, for the poor and those with pre-existing conditions. You can’t give the rich people more tax breaks.  Do the math. Under federalism, you may have to "trust" the states a bit (which we couldn't on sodomy laws).  

But single payer doesn’t cure everything – like waiting lists, or effective care for some injuries.  The best systems do have a major private component.

For all the complaints about drug prices, think about the medications that are relatively cheap (like my blood pressure medicine).  What makes it cheap is free competition. The same is true for many over the counter medications. 

  

“From each according to his ability, for each according to his needs” 

Update: July 30

The biggest fear is that Trump could just shut down subsidies through insurance companies just to make Obamacare implode.  Price, on ABC this morning, seemed to contradict that. But on NBC Meet the Press, Tom Price said the courts seemed to be saying HHS can't legally make some payments to insurance companies not authorized by Congress. The New York Times has detailed analysis Sunday morning by Reed Abelson, Abby Goodnough, and Katie Thomas. 

"Real world" football damages brains more than Internet addiction

Various reports indicate that evidence of brain injury (CTE) was found in 96% to 99% of the remains of former NFL and other football players in a study reported in JAMA (which I got familiar with during the AIDS epidemic).   CNN  summarizes it here  and EPSN here.

If you want to be known for smarts, don't play football or contact sports.  But don't get addicted to screens either.  Other good activities in the real world: music, drama, opera, kayaking, tennis, jogging, swimming, cycling (if you don't care about external cosmetics).  

Brain damage probably caused O.J.'s behavior. 

   

This fits Malcolm Galdwell’s idea of being a football fan as morally problematic. 

Raise the debt ceiling by October or else

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times reports that Congress has until mid-October to raise the debt ceiling or risk quick defaults on federal obligations, in a story June 29, link here. 

The issue was briefly mentioned Sunday morning by Fareed Zakaria, who noted that, in the scramble over health care, Congress still has not gotten around to this issue.

President Donald Trump has sounded alarmingly reckless on this issue in the past, believing the US can renegotiate its debt. But Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has said that raising the ceiling and paying bills on time is essential.  Among ideological Republicans, there is a shocking disregard that this has to do with bills already ratcheted up.

I’ve discussed here before whether this impacts Social Security recipients, and the answer is mixed because legally the Social Trust fund shelters recipients somewhat.  But it would not be unconstitutional for Congress to stop benefits, even for existing retirees, even suddenly (Flemming v Nestor, 1960). 

Small business owners need to consider zoning laws, which in some cities are anti-competitive

Here’s an important story on zoning and home-based businesses, “How planners can liberate the next Amazon, by Olivia Gonza;ez and Nolan Gray, link. 

  

The news story is quite critical especially of Charlotte NC, which John Stossel had criticized in the 1990s for requiring someone to have a commercial kitchen to sell cookies.  My biggest concern would be book authors who have inventories (which normally are easily kept off site in a storage location), but which involve “sales” operations like taking credit cards or PayPal, as well as depending on Amazon (irony).

In the video below, note the businesses based on writing and niche websites.  Yet, in the 1990s, there were a few cases (in New Jersey, Illinois, and even Los Angeles) where writers were fined for working at home.

Charlotte Observer reports revision of the city’s rules is underway, link. There is also this City-Data link. 

In the past, established legacy companies may have worried about competition from upstarts with no overhead, and cities may worry about not collecting the tax revenue implicit with rentability of commercial real estate. Even Shark Tank’s Blog Maverick (Mark Cuban) has talked about this in the past. 

But shouldn't the main concern be whether a home-based business brings unreasonable traffic into an area? It makes sense that a home should not be a retail store with hours of being open to the public. But zoning seems to be about more sometimes, about eliminating upstart competition operating with no overhead. 

Even as GOP health care bill seems to die, there is a lot of point to discussing the issues

While the Senate health care bill seems about to go down, I’ll make a couple of observations.

One is that Senator Susan Collins (R-Me) suggested using reinsurance pools as a way to cover people with pre-existing conditions in the environment of the Ted Cruz plan.

Another is that on Facebook, someone flamed me for not accepting the fact that when I was working in a career job for an establishment employer (until the end of 2001), my employer subsidized my own single health care premiums to about 80% with a tax-free benefit.  I could say I could have been paid the subsidy as salary and paid my own way, but then I would have been in a higher tax bracket. That observation seems to have been lost in the health care debate.

We need to do the (that is, our own) math. Not just let the CBO or Propac do it. 

John McCain’s surgery is disturbing, since he has had melanoma in the past.  He would be valuable in assisting Mattis make the right decisions on North Korea, which puts Trump out of his element. 
       

 Maybe Trump will visit him in Arizona this weekend, where the Nats play the D-backs, who keep McCain up late at night.  The D-backs are good this year. 

Repeal without Replace? A flap last week over the Swiss model for health care?

Should the US emulate a health care system like Switzerland’s?  Forbes (Avik Roy) thinks so (link )  FEE (Kevin Williamson)  does not (link)  For one thing, there is no employer market.

  

McConnell talks about being willing to patch Obamacare temporarily now after this flap last week, while Trump now talks repeal without replace. 

Venus accident in Florida: neither driver was negligent

More recent security video seems to have caused police in Florida to reverse themselves on whether Venus Williams was at fault when she was T-boned in an intersection in Florida.’

ABC News has the latest story and video. Williams entered the intersection when the light was green.  She was delayed when another driver turned left in front of her. The light had changed to red.  A driver from the other direction (the victim) would have the responsibility to yield to her and let her clear the intersection if she had entered it legally in the first place, according to Florida law and probably most other states.

It's important that local officials provide adequate protected turns, adequate yellow light time, and adequate visibility at all intersections.  It is often difficult to drive perfectly legally at poorly designed intersections.  It is possible when no negligence of either driver is proved, the community might be at fault for a poorly constructed intersection. 

It’s also important that motorists carry enough coverage to pay legal expenses even when they are not at fault.  Umbrella policies may help with this need, but unfortunately umbrella policies bring in other issues unrelated to driving.

 There would be a question as to whether the car who had blocked Venus with a rude left turn could be tracked down and held responsible.

You cannot enter an intersection that is already blocked even with the light green (“don’t block the box – gets you points in NYC). 

Chicago will require high school seniors to have adulthood plans to graduate

Here’s a new wrinkle on high school graduation.  Chicago won’t let seniors graduate without a concrete admission to a plan for the future.  That can be college, community college, a trade school, a job, an apprenticeship, or enlistment in the military.  The Washington Post has the story by Emma Brown July 3 here.

There are some questions.  For example, generally people can’t apply for jobs as police officers until 21.  People can’t work in bars until 21.

An interesting issue for churches is keeping college students around to help supervise youth trips (camps, missions, volunteers), some of them overseas.  They generally need a certain percentage of people over 18 going.

Little Rock, AR incident shows how vulnerable nightclubs are to customer behavior

The Power Ultra Lounge in downtown Little Rock. AR will be shut down permanently because of the violent behavior of one patron Saturday AM.

Will bars need to have security checks like the TSA to stay in business?

Of course, I get the NRA argument that if a “good guy” at Pulse had been armed, maybe many lives could have been saved.  But no establishment wants to allow weapons where alcohol is served.  An establishment could consider armed security guards.

Here is the KATV story.

Wikipedia attribution link for photo by Murrayultra, CCSA 3.0.

Faith-based groups cannot be excluded from public funds for secular purposes (Missouri case)

The Supreme Court has ruled 7-2 (Kennedy joining) that states cannot exclude religious or faith-based organizations from fund for public benefit programs that have a secular intent.  The Washington Post story by Robert Barnes is here.



The case involved Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, MO.    The case is Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer.

Public domain picture from Wikipedia of Blue Note in Colimbia. 

Senate reveals its "kinder, gentler" Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017

Senate Republicans are about to unveil their “kinder, gentler” health care bill today, which seems (like a grand jury investigation) to have been carried out in secret, Washington Post story (“Power Post”) story by Sean Sullivan, Juleit Eilperin, and Paige Winfiled Cunningham, here.

It's called the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017.  Here is Business Insider’s story. The text of the bill (HR 1628) is embedded in this article.

The main feature of the bill seems to be the indexing of subsidies according to income (inversely) rather than age.  It does sound like it will handle the biggest concerns about pre-existing conditions and low to moderate income people, and that will stabilize markets for a while.  But it will weaken Medicaid over time.  It may undermine not only abortion but family planning services.  It could undermine HIV prevention (like PrEP).

Actually, some people say the bill still allows states to waive out of paying for pre-existing conditions (the "states rights" idea, or simple federalism), and Sen. Rand Paul talks about the "death spiral" of Obamacare.

Ironically, McConnell says it strengthens Medicaid and does allow adult kids to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26.  Nursing home care under Medicaid will be weaker and could cause more imposition of filial responsibility laws.

Democrats say the bill won’t guarantee coverages that many Americans actually need. Democrats also say they have only ten hours to debate the bill. No open committee hearings.



I tweeted POTUS recently, that the bill needs subsidies, not Just tax breaks, and some way has to be found to pay for it.  So much for letting the rich off the hook.

"VoxCare" weighs in here.

New alarm reported over Yellowstone caldera and possibility of a massive eruption even in the next decade

A site called Zero Hedge has put out alarming reports the past two days about an increase in earthquake activity in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, which apparently has been followed by a quieting again.  This event is seen as a possible symptom of a massive eruption of the Yellowstone caldera.  The story (with links) was shared on Facebook today by a member of the “doomsday prepper” community.

Some reports claim that there is a 10% chance of a major Yellowstone eruption by the year 2100.  Some claim it could be imminent.   There is one massive eruption every 650,000 years and we are about due.  Each eruption occurs farther east than the previous one.

There are also reports that the US is quietly contacting other nations for possible catastrophe “refugees”.  But it might be possible to house people in private homes in the eastern part of the US, following the “radical hospitality” idea proposed in the past for political refugees and asylum seekers.



There have sometimes been stories that a change of water levels in some lakes in the area could predict an eruption.

A major volcanic eruption would cause an ash cloud that would block the sun’s rays in many parts of the world for some years, reversing climate change.  “The year without a summer” in 1815 resulted from a massive Indonesian eruption.

Of course, when Mt. St. Helens vomited in May 1980, there was a lot of disruption, but that would be dwarfed by Yellowstone. There are some reports that the magma chamber under Yellowstone is much larger and deeper than previously thought, one of the deepest on the planet.

Recently, a young man was severely burned after falling into a hot spring in Yellowstone.  I have visited the area only once, in May 1981, when it was still cold.

Wikipedia attribution link for p.d. diagram of the Yellowstone caldera.

Emergency room doctor: What military bullets do to bodies

Leana Wen, an emergency room surgeon in Baltimore, has an op-ed in the New York Times Saturday making the strongest case for an assault weapons ban, “What Bullets do to bodies.”
 
But these are the expanding or tumbling bullets in battlefield weapons.  I think those started with the M16, as I remember from my own Army service.   There was no drill and ceremony manual for the M16, as we learned on the M14.

Some in GOP stand by self-defense rights after Alexandria; will Congress tone down the partisanship when debt ceiling comes up?

Some of “those Republicans” want looser gun laws, still, and think they would have been safer if carrying their own weapons on the Alexandria, VA baseball field recently. New York Times story.
 
No, they should have had better security in the first place.



The internal organ damage done by a high velocity weapon is getting coverage in the news today.

 Yes, we learned about that in the Army, although I never had to fire an M16.

It’s a little bit reassuring to hear politicians in Congress today saying they need to tone down their partisan bickering and work together. Will they do so soon on something like the debt ceiling?

Shocking security hazard for members of Congress on a baseball practice field for a charity event

The shootings of GOP congressional staff and aides early this morning at a baseball practice field in Alexandria VA indeed shocking.  From the known facts, it seems to have been “Left-wing terrorism”, more like what could have happened in the 60s and 70s.  There was an incident in 1954 where 5 congressmen were shot.

Also shocking is the partisan question of  the attacker at a congressperson leaving early unaware of the attention, then shooting at people fielding ground balls.



Still, it’s surprising that only two Capitol Police officers were in the area to provide security. Both wounded, they acted heroically; without them, there might have been over 20 people in Congress assassinated.

The Washington Post has the latest details here.
 
Normally there is more perimeter security when a significant number of members of Congress, the Cabinet, judiciary, and the like are gathered together in one place.

We know what some people will ask about self-defense.

The shooter had claimed he was a Sanders supporter and had been strident on social media. There will be questions about the violent nature of the Facebook group he belonged to.

One-third of the world's population is overweight, and US leads the way

CNN reports that one third of the world’s population is overweight (BMI over 25; over 30 is obese) with the US leading the way.

13% of the world’s children are overweight.

It certainly appears that better educated people in the US have fewer weight problems., Young adult cis gay males are less likely to be overweight than usual (just notice Pride this past weekend).



People in native populations exposed to process foods are more likely to become overweight (and diabetes) than European or African peoples, because they evolved in a culture with less over-prepared food available.  Just like wild animals (mammals) would become diabetic if fed human foods; they stay healthy on what they can catch or forage.
 
Yet, I’ve always seen the weigh-loss business as rather pimpy.