After Activist Pressure, Amazon Purges Dozens of Far-Right Books
Somehow the words “book purge” don’t really scream progress and democratic liberties for all.
Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,
Nikki Haley is criticized for her comment on health care in Finland
“Health care costs are too high that is true but comparing us to Finland is ridiculous,” Haley tweeted. ” Ask them how their health care is. You won’t like their answer.”
…”Finland has a high performing health system, with remarkable good quality in both primary and hospital care. The country also achieves good health status at relatively low level of health spending,” Kai Sauer tweeted. He added that the United Nations describes Finland as having the world’s third-lowest infant mortality rate and the lowest maternal mortality.
…Despite significantly higher health care spending than Finland, the United States has the worst overall child mortality rate compared with 19 other wealthy nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to a study published last year in the journal Health Affairs.
…And it does not fare well either when it comes to the maternal mortality rate for women. In the US, it’s 14 per 100,000 women — nearly five times higher than Finland, which is three, according to the World Health Organization. The number puts the United States in the company of several nations, including Uruguay and Serbia.
…When it comes to under-five mortality rates, Finland has 2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, while the US has 6.6 per 1,000 live births for the same age group.
Nikki Haley is criticized for her comment on health care in Finland – CNN
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Sackler Family’s Donation To British Museum Is Quashed Over Opioid Fallout
The Sackler family owns Purdue Pharma, the company that has made billions of dollars off of OxyContin and is accused of pressuring doctors to prescribe the opioid while also misleading the public about its dangerous addictive qualities.
“The Sacklers are major donors to museums, galleries and theaters in the U.S. and Europe,” NPR’s Elizabeth Blair reports. “Artists and activists are putting pressure on those institutions to stop taking their money.”
Purdue Pharma has previously admitted to committing a felony and paid millions of dollars in fines, and it’s currently facing numerous lawsuits. But one suit in particular, from Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, seeks to implicate eight members of the Sackler family, accusing them of trying to maximize their profits even as they knew the painkiller was causing deadly overdoses.
…Oxycodone — the semi-synthetic opiate whose forms include OxyContin and other brand names — was the No. 1 cause of overdose deaths in 2011, in cases where at least one specific drug was mentioned. Since then, heroin and fentanyl have become the top overdose threats in the ongoing opioid crisis. But through at least 2016, oxycodone’s overdose rate also rose slightly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sackler Family’s Donation To British Museum Is Quashed Over Opioid Fallout : NPR
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U.S. judge blocks drilling over climate change
A U.S. judge has blocked oil drilling planned in Wyoming because the government failed to adequately consider its impact on global warming – a decision that could complicate President Donald Trump’s broader efforts to expand oil, gas and coal output on America’s public lands.
…It blocked drilling on more than 300,000 acres (121,400 hectares) in Wyoming until the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management conducts further analyses about how the development would impact climate change.
U.S. judge blocks drilling over climate change, casting doubt on Trump agenda | Reuters
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Virgin and Partners Want to Build Up Rail Travel in Florida
Cheap gasoline and the interstate road system are all very well, but they’ve caused congestion, pollution, urban sprawl and many road deaths. In contrast, Florida railway passengers can sip champagne or beer and make use of the free Wi-Fi. Ticket prices are reasonable. Once constructed, the Miami to Orlando journey should be slightly more than three hours. In good traffic, driving takes a bit longer than that.
…Building on existing rail corridors where possible, 1 and operating trains at slower speeds, has cut costs and overcome potential regulatory holdups in Florida.
Virgin Trains Billionaires Want to Restore Glory of U.S. Railroad – Bloomberg
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All of Trump’s Humiliating Financial Lies Are About to Be Exposed
In 2004, shortly after Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts defaulted on hundreds of millions of bonds, causing steep losses for Deutsche clients, Trump asked the bank’s commercial real-estate group to lend him more than $500 million to build a 92-story skyscraper in Chicago. It did, but not before employees determined, among other things, that Trump was massively inflating his assets.
…In patented Trump fashion, shortly before the bulk of the loan was due in November 2008, he sued the bank to get out of repaying, demanding $3 billion in damages and arguing that Deutsche had, in part, caused the financial crisis and was therefore to blame for his inability to sell hundreds of condo units.
…Deutsche Bank dispatched a team to Trump Tower to inspect Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate financial records. The bankers determined he was overvaluing some of his real-estate assets by as much as 70 percent, according to two former executives.
All of Trump’s Humiliating Financial Lies Are About to Be Exposed | Vanity Fair
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Oklahoma sheriff and all of her deputies resign in protest over dangerous jail conditions
Nowata County Sheriff Terry Sue Barnett tendered her resignation on Monday after a judge mandated her to reopen the county jail after high levels of carbon monoxide sent four of her employees to the emergency room last month.
…Twelve members of the Nowata County Sheriff’s Office staff, including deputies and civilian employees, resigned with Barnett on Monday. Even the K-9 officer, Ranger, quit and signed his resignation letter with a paw print, Barnett said.
The sheriff’s office said five people currently remain on the staff with dispatchers sourcing 911 calls and delegating them to stations nearby.
…In the resignation letter, Barnett also detailed other dangerous conditions in the “inadequately budgeted” jail, including exposed wires in the shower areas that have shocked inmates, mold throughout the jail and offices, and “improper” plumbing that often causes methane gas to permeate the jail.
…Judge Gibson declared Barnett’s resignation “void” on Tuesday, but the sheriff said that is not within his right.
“I do not work for the judge. The judge is an elected official. I am also an elected official,” Barnett told reporters. “I do not believe we live in a country where we can be ordered to go to work when I have already tendered my resignation.”
…”The Nowata County Jail is a ticking time bomb of constitutional liability,” DeMuro said in a statement. “If the county thinks it has budget problems now, it better wake up because somebody is going to die in that jail.”
Oklahoma sheriff and all of her deputies resign in protest over dangerous jail conditions
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Elizabeth Warren’s Proposed Ultra-Millionaire Tax
It’s politically feasible because it affects only a tiny number of ridiculously wealthy people who will barely feel the pinch. And it raises an astonishing $2.7 trillion dollars over 10 years, enough to fund a wish list of progressive dreams.
…American billionaires (who number around 680 right now) would pay three percent on their wealth over that $1 billion. In most years, two or three percent is far less than the appreciation of their assets. The vast majority of people paying the tax would still be getting richer every year.
…Asset valuations—particularly of privately-held businesses and other murky and illiquid assets—can be hard to specify, especially when the ultra-rich are protected by a battalion of high-priced lawyers who can drag out the audits for years.
…To cover the extra work, her plan calls for expanding the number of IRS agents—which have been slashed in recent years—and adding steep penalties for shifting assets overseas or otherwise trying to hide them.
Elizabeth Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax Isn’t Just Smart Policy, It’s Brilliant Politics
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America’s Oldest Mall Now Contains 48 Charming Low-Cost Micro-Apartments
Starting at an affordable $550 a month, residents can rent an Arcade Providence, one-bedroom unit that’s 225 to 450 square feet in size. Inside, there’s a built-in bed, full bathroom, refrigerator, sink, microwave, dishwasher, seating, and storage. For more amenities, tenants can also use the shared TV room, game room, on-site laundry facility, bike storage area, or parking garage that’s located across the street. The only catch is that there’s a waiting list with about 4,000 people currently on it.
America’s Oldest Mall Now Contains 48 Charming Low-Cost Micro-Apartments
Micro apartments started with such promise but have turned into another expensive yuppie fad. 4000 people on the waiting list? No published prices? You can guarantee yourself that it costs a lot more than $550 a month to get into one of these apartments these days.
Reconnecting With Rural America
The importance of speaking to and about rural America remains critically important to the future of the Democratic Party and of Democratic candidates. A failure to do so will continue the losses the party and its candidates have sustained over the last 15 years.
…During that same period, our national party has lost the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate, a majority of governorships, state legislative chambers, and the presidency. I contend that many of these losses would have been avoided had the party and our candidates truly shown up in rural areas, talked to and about the contributions of rural America to the rest of the country, and outlined a real, well-thought-out plan to rebuild and revive the rural economy.
It is bad enough that we didn’t show up, didn’t talk up the contributions of rural Americans, and didn’t lay out a positive vision for real economic change in rural areas, but we also failed to counteract the negative narrative about government that seeped into those rural areas.
…If the Democratic Party is the party of effective government, we should say so and make the case to all Americans that government plays a positive role in our country. ….Democrats should make a consistent effort to communicate to rural Americans using local and regional media outlets, those that people in rural areas read and listen to every day to find out what is happening in their part of the world.
…Our elected officials and our candidates also have to show up in rural areas in order to win. And when they do, they need to talk up, not down, to rural Americans. Acknowledging the contributions rural America makes to the rest of the country is a good place to start. Recognizing their frustrations and concerns, as well as their hopes and dreams, is an important part of an effective and winning message.
…The number of people addicted to, or misusing, opioids is staggering. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 90 Americans die every day after overdosing on opioids.
Rural America has been devastated by this epidemic. To begin with, rural Americans have limited access to health care generally, but this is even more acute with the services needed to combat addictions. More than 85 percent of the 1669 federally designated mental health professional shortage areas are in rural areas.
….To combat this scourge in the short term will require physicians trained to use opioids only in very limited circumstances and to prescribe non-addictive pain treatment in most cases. Drug companies need to provide Naloxone in more convenient and easier-to-administer ways while keeping costs down. MAT and full counseling services need to be more accessible to rural Americans. And, we all need to recognize that addiction is a disease just like cancer or diabetes so we can help remove the stigma attached to addiction disorders. Removing this stigma will help make it easier for those in need of help to seek it. What we don’t need is exactly what the Trump Administration is touting: more law enforcement, harsher penalties, and longer jail sentences.
Over the long haul, the most successful “cure” to the opioid epidemic will be a rebuilt and revived rural economy. If people in rural areas believe, with good reason, that their tomorrow will be better than their today, we will see a sharp decline in today’s unacceptably high levels of lives lost to despair.
…For far too long, we have allowed the rural economy to be an “extraction” economy where everything from crops to coal are being taken from rural areas and transported somewhere else where value is added and opportunity is created. To succeed in rural areas, Democrats also need to offer a “sustainable” alternative to the extraction economy of the past. If not, that extraction economy will continue to slowly bleed rural America of its natural resources and its young people.
…A Democratic-promoted sustainable economy based on partnerships must sustain rural families, communities, and natural resources in a manner consistent with the values and culture of rural places.
…Democrats may find fault with production agriculture, since they often believe it to denote only large-scale, commercial-size operations or “factory farms.” But that is not how it is understood in the countryside, where the history and culture are rooted in production agriculture defined as family farms. Indeed, most large scale commercial-size operations are owned and operated by families.
…In rural America, trade agreements are viewed positively by most in the agricultural sector. Without robust exports, we would have many fewer farm families because exports help to stabilize prices in most major commodities.
…A key to building a sustainable rural economy is supporting and building local and regional markets where small-sized operations not only survive, but thrive.
Democrats must lead the effort to adequately build more local and regional markets and the smaller-scale operations that need them. Democrats must advocate for more money for micro-loans to help beginning farmers get started. Democrats must also advocate for tailored risk-management tools that enable small-sized operations to survive during challenging times. Democrats must demand more conservation resources targeted to small operations served by a local or regional market. Democrats must partner with private investment firms to finance more food hubs where locally produced goods can be aggregated and sold to large-scale purchasers. Democrats must devise tax and regulatory incentives designed to improve opportunities for the success of local and regional markets.
…One immediate benefit from more investment in conservation will be increased opportunities for outdoor recreation. Conservation improves landscape and increases habitat, which increases hunting, fishing, biking, canoeing, and kayaking. Outdoor recreation is a big business—over a $600 billion industry today —and a rural job creator, with many of the 6 million employed by the industry living in rural places.
… The sustainable approach to rural job creation should, in the future, depend more on bio-based inputs in manufacturing. The use of plants, crops, and animal waste to produce a wide variety of materials, chemicals, fabrics, fibers, fuel, and energy can bring sustainable manufacturing back to rural America. The job-creation possibilities for rural America through a sustainable approach are truly endless.
…A foundation of production agriculture and exports, local and regional food systems, ecosystem markets, and bio-based manufacturing can help build an economy that truly works in rural areas. And advocating and supporting such government action that helps create this kind of economy would give Democrats a successful progressive message for reaching rural areas.
…To help people you have to govern, to govern you have to win elections, and to win elections you have to appeal broadly. For Democrats, that means making a concerted effort to offer a more comprehensive, progressive vision to rural Americans.
Reconnecting With Rural America : Democracy Journal
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Ex-Clinton staffers slam Sanders over private jet flights
Many in the party continue to believe the Vermont senator played a role in contributing to Clinton’s defeat in November because of his criticisms of her prior to the general election, and his refusal to concede earlier when it appeared he had little mathematical chance of securing the party nomination.
…Bernie Sanders singled out the fossil fuel industry for criticism, listing it among the special interests he planned to take on. But in the final months of the 2016 campaign, Sanders repeatedly requested and received the use of a carbon-spewing private jet for himself and his traveling staff when he served as a surrogate campaigner for Hillary Clinton.
…Prior to working out the logistics of Sanders’ travel, “our working assumption was that 90 percent of the time it would be commercial,” said another [HRC 2016 person]
…But that idea did not go over well with the Sanders camp.
…Sanders’ flights — usually on a Gulfstream plane — cost the Clinton-Kaine campaign at least $100,000 in total, according to three people familiar with the cost of the air travel.
……The travel details weren’t the only point of tension with Sanders. At his rallies for Clinton, Sanders sometimes only wanted people who had endorsed him in the primaries to speak when he would appear, a request which frustrated the Clinton campaign.
…“Sure you can have your supporters there, but you can’t exclude the congressman who endorsed Hillary Clinton in the city you are going to,” said the former staffer. “You’re campaigning for us. That was always a battle every single time.”
..In the two years following the presidential election, Sanders continued his frequent private jet travel, spending at least $342,000 on the flights.
…The revelation of Sanders’ penchant for private jet travel, both in 2016 and in the subsequent years, could surface as an issue for him since he often demands the U.S. do its part to fight global climate change — to which CO2 emissions from aviation is a contributor.
Ex-Clinton staffers slam Sanders over private jet flights – POLITICO
The language and tone of the former Sander’s staff strikes the peanut gallery as un-necessarily hostile and confrontational, arrogant, holier-than-thou, and wholly unprofessional. No wonder they didn’t win or make any friends with the party or the nominee’s staff.
‘Moment of reckoning’: US cities burn recyclables after China bans imports
Until recently, China had been taking about 40% of US paper, plastics and other recyclables.
…Since January 2018, China hasn’t accepted two dozen different recycling materials, such as plastic and mixed paper, unless they meet strict rules around contamination. The imported recycling has to be clean and unmixed – a standard too hard to meet for most American cities.
…The conscientious citizens of Philadelphia continue to put their pizza boxes, plastic bottles, yoghurt containers and other items into recycling bins.
But in the past three months, half of these recyclables have been loaded on to trucks, taken to a hulking incineration facility and burned, according to the city’s government.
…. Nearly four in 10 children in the city have asthma, while the rate of ovarian cancer is 64% higher than the rest of Pennsylvania and lung cancer rates are 24% higher, according to state health statistics.
…The industry that remains emits a cocktail of soot and chemicals upon a population of 34,000 residents, 70% of them black. There’s a waste water treatment plant, a nearby Kimberly-Clark paper mill and a medical waste facility. And then there’s Covanta’s incinerator, one of the largest of its kind in the US.
…The burning of trash releases a host of pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides and particulate matter, which are tiny fragments of debris that, once inhaled, cause an array of health problems.
…A host of studies have identified possible links between air pollution and ovarian and breast cancers, which are unusually prevalent in Chester. A 1995 report by the EPA found that air pollution from local industry provides a “large component of the cancer and non-cancer risk to the citizens of Chester”.
“There are higher than normal rates of heart disease, stroke and asthma in Chester, which are all endpoints for poor air.”
…It’s a situation being replicated across the US as cities struggle to adapt to a recent ban by China on the import of items intended for reuse.
The loss of this overseas dumping ground means that plastics, paper and glass set aside for recycling by Americans is being stuffed into domestic landfills or is simply burned in vast volumes. This new reality risks an increase of plumes of toxic pollution that threaten the largely black and Latino communities who live near heavy industry and dumping sites in the US.
…Just 9% of plastic is recycled in the US, with campaigns to push up recycling rates obscuring broader concerns about the environmental impact of mass consumption, whether derived from recycled materials or not.
…The country generates more than 250m tons of waste a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with about a third of this recycled and composted.
‘Moment of reckoning’: US cities burn recyclables after China bans imports | Cities | The Guardian
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Whites Contribute More To Air Pollution — Minorities Bear The Burden
Scientists and policymakers have long known that black and Hispanic Americans tend to live in neighborhoods with more pollution of all kinds, than white Americans. …A driver of unequal health outcomes across the U.S.
…The researchers found that air pollution is disproportionately caused by white Americans’ consumption of goods and services, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic Americans.
…The most relevant air pollutant metric for human health is “particulate matter 2.5” or PM2.5. It represents the largest environmental health risk factor in the United States with higher levels linked to more cardiovascular problems, respiratory illness, diabetes and even birth defects. PM2.5 pollution is mostly caused by human activities, like burning fossil fuels or agriculture.
…The researchers generated maps of where different emitters, like agriculture or construction, caused PM2.5 pollution. Coal plants produced pockets of pollution in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, while agricultural emissions were concentrated in the Midwest and California’s central valley. “We then tied in census data to understand where different racial-ethnic groups live to understand exposure patterns,” says Hill.
…After accounting for population size differences, whites experience about 17 percent less air pollution than they produce, through consumption, while blacks and Hispanics bear 56 and 63 percent more air pollution, respectively, than they cause by their consumption, according to the study.
“These patterns didn’t seem to be driven by different kinds of consumption,” says Tessum, “but different overall levels.” In other words, whites were just consuming disproportionately more of the same kinds of goods and services resulting in air pollution than minority communities.
…PM2.5 exposure by all groups has fallen by about 50 percent from 2002 to 2015, driven in part by regulation and population movement away from polluted areas. But the inequity remains mostly unchanged.
Whites Contribute More To Air Pollution — Minorities Bear The Burden : Shots – Health News : NPR
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Deep sea creatures in the Mariana Trench eat plastic and introduce it into the food chain, study finds
Amphipods had plastic fibers and particles in their digestive systems, known as the hindgut. The deeper the trench, the more fibers they found.
…Sixty-six percent of the plastic they found was blue fibers. Black, red, and purple fragments were also present, along with blue and pink fragments.
No trench was fiber-free, and more than 80 percent of the amphipods contained them. When tested, the fibers were the same used in textiles, and the study suggests they entered the ocean after leaching from washing machines.
…Amphipods are becoming a vector to transport plastic particles into the food web.
“The amphipods they are finding fibers in are prey for larger fish and those larger fish are prey for even larger predators,” she says. …“And that puts these fibers into the food web. We are finding larger organisms with intestines lined with microfibers. They found a baleen whale that had been beached and when they cut it open, the intestines were lined with these smaller particles.
Deep sea creatures in the Mariana Trench eat plastic, study finds
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Why the college admissions scandal brings up affirmative action
Factors such as donations, athletics and legacy status are baked into the admissions process, which has traditionally benefitted wealthy families. Yet affirmative action, which is intended to help underrepresented minorities, gets intense scrutiny and legal challenges.
…There is little discussion about underqualified white students who benefit from preferences in the admissions process such as sports, family influence and legacies. …Legacies are applicants who are regarded preferentially because they are the children of alumni. They also tend to be white and wealthy.
…Athletes of patrician sports, such as sailing or water polo, are recruited to college athletics. These types of sports aren’t accessible for students from inner-city schools.
…It is not affirmative action that threatens the fairness in the college admissions process, its supporters say, but rather the advantages of the rich and powerful.
…Americans are “not entirely wrong” to think “that elites are rigging the system for their own benefit and for the benefit of their families,” he said.
Why the college admissions scandal brings up affirmative action – CNN
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Elizabeth Warren’s mission to break up Facebook gets help — from Facebook
The Democratic presidential candidate unveiled her latest war against corporate titans last week — a proposal to break up tech companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google by forcing them to separate or sell off parts of their businesses and reverse major mergers. Over the weekend, Facebook handed Warren a prime example of its power: the removal of the Warren presidential campaign’s ads placed on Facebook touting her new policy.
…Facebook, in particular, is facing increasing scrutiny from lawmakers on a range of issues, including its market share, the spread of disinformation on the platform and how it handles user data — all issues that are expected to dominate the political conversation in the 2020 election.
…A Russian government-linked group targeted Americans with Facebook ads in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election. The group paid for the ads in Russian rubles.
Elizabeth Warren’s mission to break up Facebook gets help — from Facebook – CNNPolitics
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Cash from N.Y., feds tests 100K rape kits, leads to 1K arrests
100,000 sexual assault cases around the country has been sent for DNA testing with money from a New York prosecutor and federal authorities, spurring over 1,000 arrests and hundreds of convictions in three years, officials said Tuesday.
…Financed with $38 million from settlements in banking-related cases, [NY] dispatched more than 55,000 rape kits to testing labs.
…Meanwhile, another nearly 45,000 rape kits have been sent to labs through the Justice Department program — and it’s produced nearly 899 prosecutions and 498 convictions and plea bargains, according to data the agency provided Monday to The Associated Press.
…It’s estimated that another 155,000 or more sex assault evidence kits still await testing, and thousands of results have yet to be linked to suspects. Many who have been identified can’t be prosecuted because of legal time limits and other factors.
…The backlog built up over decades, partly due to the cost of tests that can run $1,000 or more.
But victims’ advocates also say many sex assault cases simply got sidelined over the years by police and prosecutors who unduly disbelieved or downplayed victims’ allegations.
Cash from N.Y., feds tests 100K rape kits, leads to 1K arrests
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