16 week “action” blog bucket #2 begins 2023 April 16 — Photos duplicates, separate line for hotspot, walking therapy ache, hotspot O, Susan texts challenge, engine light assumed for low brake fluid,
updated 2023apr23U7pm
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Health non-routine:
16 - U McEgg Sakura ice M soup 3 cookies apple peanut butter McDQPC T oats V8 ice W oats 2 cookies no bread McDQPC R soup donut ice walking therapy ache F oats honey bun two cookies cottage cheese apple peanut butter A Sakura
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Niceties non-routine:
16 - M need head haircut T 50degrees no heat pad W face haircut merge duplicates Naomi/Wilber (Gale cane) Greg/Jennifer 46y cremated cat collector R Charlene/Richard brother Charlie has Alan Cintron’s number (Blanca Cintron?) Jackie mental therapy Cecile hotspot O F licorice to Wyola A Susan texts challenge
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As-set Residence In Motion (RIM) non-routine:
16 - U spiff blog M straight to nap T Tmobile hotspot device car mat placed glued hotspot unto M2 W merge duplicates flash backup R merge duplicates updated Scrivener F merge duplicates flash backup A engine light after DeLand round trip U topped fluids brake 6oz water oil down half quart engine light remains off
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Comment 23w16: Second 600kbps just doesn’t cut it. R side of L arch too much walking ache.
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Political consensus.
updated2023apr20R3pm. In a statement Tuesday, Fox acknowledged that the court found some of its on-air statements about Dominion to be false. But it did not apologize, and its hosts will not have to apologize on-air for supporting the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen in part through the use of rigged voting machines. The Fox statement went on to say, “This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.” After enduring months of humbling revelations brought out through legal discovery, it appears that the in-your-face swagger built into Fox’s DNA by its CEO and master propagandist Roger Ailes never left. As Angelo Carusone, president and chairman of Media Matters for America, said of the settlement on CBC News Tuesday: “But will this change their behavior? No. In fact, my warning to everybody is Fox News is about to burn brighter and hotter as a result of this.” (Media Matters is a non-profit, progressive media watchdog that has been one of Fox’s harshest critics.)
updated2023apr19W10am. China today is vastly richer than India, but that is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the late 1970s, India was more affluent (based on the most telling measure, economic output per person). Since then, the two countries have followed very different paths:
What happened after the late 1970s? Under Deng Xiaoping, its ruler at the time, China began to open its economy to market forces and foreign investment. It moved away from the inefficiencies of state-run communism. But the government did so in a measured way, rather than fully embracing laissez-faire capitalism. China maintained trade protections that helped its companies grow: In exchange for allowing foreign companies to build factories, China restricted those companies’ ability to sell goods in China and required them to share technology with local companies. This mix of market capitalism and government regulation was the same one that other countries — including the United States, long ago — have used to industrialize. The strategy worked phenomenally well. Hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens moved from poor, rural areas to take factory jobs in cities. The resulting decline in poverty may be the largest in human history. India was never a communist country, but it did have a weak socialist-style economy in the 1970s suffering the aftereffects of British colonialism.
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?abVariantId=1&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230419&instance_id=90547&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN®i_id=91739846&segment_id=130802&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F74deabc0-d909-55e4-b1ed-5588ba1acb01&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4
updated2023apr10M7pm. So this case is about access to abortion — but it’s not just about that. It’s also about the FDA’s institutional authority and whether judges could override its decisions on other medications that are politically controversial. In both the Texas and the Washington lawsuits, individual judges have given orders to an agency that is supposed to be able to independently evaluate and approve drugs based on science, without outside or political interference. These lawsuits, particularly the challenge to mifepristone, are raising a lot of red flags for those concerned about preserving the autonomy of an institution that ensures the drugs Americans take are safe and effective.
updated2023apr10M7am. A federal judge in Texas has taken a shocking and irresponsible action: invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a medication used safely by hundreds of thousands of women each year to help terminate pregnancies as part of a two-pill regimen. For what appears to be the first time, a court has invalidated an agency drug approval — an approval that was based on extensive review of scientific evidence, earned the unanimous support of outside experts and retains, after two decades, the full backing of major professional medical organizations. The decision is so stunning that it is reasonable to ask whether courts should have any role in reviewing the F.D.A.’s scientific decision-making at all. In fact, judges do have an important job: protecting the ability of the agency to use science and expert judgment to support the health of the American people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/opinion/fda-mifepristone.html
updated2023apr10M7am. In what was framed as a joint call with France, Xi urged for peace talks to resume soon and called “for the protection of civilians,” while also reiterating that “nuclear weapons must not be used, and nuclear war must not be fought” over Ukraine. That latter point marked perhaps the biggest distance between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has periodically rattled the nuclear saber as the war he unleashed in Ukraine lurches on. Despite European entreaties, Xi made no definitive commitment to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Macron was joined in China by Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. The two leaders sent somewhat divergent messages; von der Leyen bemoaned China’s “unfair practices,” particularly in trade, and arrived in the country after delivering a tough speech on the authoritarian challenge posed by Beijing. Macron, on the other hand, warned against the West plunging itself into an “inescapable spiral” of tensions with China. Chinese commentators suggested that’s because the tables of history have turned and Macron recognizes the sheer weight and importance of China’s economy, not least at a moment when he’s trying to carve out a vision of a more robust, capable and independent Europe. “Although there are still concerns in France about our country’s increasing [global] role, China’s support is essential if France wants to exercise its soft power in global governance,” Shanghai-based scholars Zhang Ji and Xue Sheng wrote in a recent essay.
updated2023apr08A4amThe Finnish Secret to Happiness? Knowing When You Have Enough. Interviews with Finns reveal a complex reality that includes satisfaction from sustainable living, strong social safety nets, and embracing nature, alongside feelings of guilt, anxiety, and loneliness.
“FDA stands behind its determination that mifepristone is safe and effective under its approved conditions of use for medical termination of early pregnancy, and believes patients should have access to FDA-approved medications that FDA has determined to be safe and effective for their intended uses,” the agency said.https://dnyuz.com/2023/04/01/the-finnish-secret-to-happiness-knowing-when-you-have-enough/
always a bogey man
In the long term, the decline of unions tends to hurt workers: A large recent study, consistent with other research, found that union members made about 20 percent more on average than nonunionized workers who were otherwise similar wages. The additional wages often came out of corporate profits, which explains why the decline of unions has contributed to rising economic inequality. The shrinking of unions effectively redistributes income from low- and middle-income workers to affluent investors. (In a new Times Magazine essay about American poverty, the sociologist Matthew Desmond writes: “With unions largely out of the picture, corporations have chipped away at the conventional midcentury work arrangement, which involved steady employment, opportunities for advancement and raises and decent pay with some benefits.”)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/briefing/labor-unions-democratic-party-right-to-work.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=US%20News
Rosatom has proved uniquely successful as both a business enterprise and a vehicle for Russian political influence. Much of its ascendancy is due to what experts have labeled a “one-stop nuclear shop” that can provide countries with an all-inclusive package: materials, training, support, maintenance, disposal of nuclear waste, decommissioning and, perhaps most important, financing on favorable terms. And with a life span of 20 to 40 years, deals to build nuclear reactors compel a long-term marriage. Russia’s tightest grip is on the market for nuclear fuel. It controls 38 percent of the world’s uranium conversion and 46 percent of the uranium enrichment capacity — essential steps in producing usable fuel. “That’s equal to all of OPEC put together in terms of market share and power,” said Paul Dabbar, a visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, referring to the oil dominance of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/business/economy/russia-nuclear-energy-ukraine.html
Finally, somebody has taken a try at writing a Supreme Court ethics code, though not the court itself. The justices reportedly have discussed the subject but apparently have not reached any agreement on what, if anything, to do about it. Now, however, two groups have written what they call a model code of conduct for the Supreme Court. And it's getting generally favorable reviews. The groups are the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan, independent government watchdog, and the Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/1162324746/outside-groups-take-a-first-stab-at-a-supreme-court-ethics-code
After the international team stumbled upon the new data, they reached out to the Chinese researchers who had uploaded the files with an offer to collaborate, hewing to rules of the online repository, scientists involved with the new analysis said. After that, the sequences disappeared from GISAID. It is not clear who removed them or why they were taken down. Dr. Débarre said the research team was seeking more data, including some from market samples that were never made public. “What’s important is there’s still more data,” she said.Scientists involved with the analysis said that some of the samples had also contained genetic material from other animals and from humans. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, who worked on the analysis, said that the human genetic material was to be expected given that people were shopping and working there and that human Covid cases had been linked to the market. Dr. Goldstein, too, cautioned that “we don’t have an infected animal, and we can’t prove definitively there was an infected animal at that stall.” Genetic material from the virus is stable enough, he said, that it is not clear when exactly it was deposited at the market. He said that the team was still analyzing the data and that it had not intended for its analysis to become public before it had released a report. “But,” he said, “given that the animals that were present in the market were not sampled at the time, this is as good as we can hope to get.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/science/covid-wuhan-market-raccoon-dogs-lab-leak.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20230317&instance_id=87913&nl=from-the-times®i_id=139813910&segment_id=127982&te=1&user_id=b65d257ff73ec8fa3ce6ab1a2c07530e
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia was not the aggressor in the Ukraine war, but that his country was simply trying to defend itself, to which the crowd laughed and groaned. This week, India's Observer Research Foundation gathered academics, business executives and diplomats from the G-20, or Group of 20 economies, for a conference in Delhi known as the Raisina Dialogue. he mixed reaction from Lavrov's claim that Russia was not the aggressor in the conflict, but rather trying to defend it self, spoke to the complicated allegiances that have formed from the Ukraine war.
Neither of the Science papers provide the smoking gun — that is, an animal infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus at a market. But they come close. They provide photographic evidence of wild animals such as raccoon dogs and a red fox, which can be infected with and shed SARS-CoV-2, sitting in cages in the market in late 2019. What's more, the caged animals are shown in or near a stall where scientists found SARS-CoV-2 virus on a number of surfaces, including on cages, carts and machines that process animals after they are slaughtered at the market. The data in the 2022 studies paints an incredibly detailed picture of the early days of the pandemic. Photographic and genetic data pinpoint a specific stall at the market where the coronavirus likely was transmitted from an animal into people. And a genetic analysis estimates the time, within weeks, when not just one but two spillovers occurred. It calculates that the coronavirus jumped into people once in late November or early December and then again few weeks later. At this exact same time, a huge COVID outbreak occurred at the market. Hundreds of people, working and shopping at the market, were likely infected. That outbreak is the first documented one of the pandemic, and it then spilled over into the community, as one of the Science papers shows. At the same time, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention found two variants of the coronavirus inside the market. And an independent study, led by virologists at the University of California, San Diego, suggests these two variants didn't evolve in people, because throughout the entire pandemic, scientists have never detected a variant linking the two together. Altogether, the new studies suggest that, most likely, the two variants evolved inside animals. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/28/1160162845/what-does-the-science-say-about-the-origin-of-the-sars-cov-2-pandemic
Russia and China refused to condemn the invasion at the G20 talks. Moscow accused Western countries of destabilizing the meeting and being "anti-Russian". A year after Russia's invasion, the conflict continues to have knock-on effects on the global economy. Previous meetings of G20 members have also failed to produce a joint statement since Russia, a member of the grouping, invaded Ukraine last February, a move that has been met with widespread condemnation. India, which hosted the talks in the southern city of Bengaluru, issued a "chair's summary" from the meeting, noting there were "different assessments of the situation and sanctions" at the two-day meeting. A footnote said two paragraphs summarising the war - which it said were adapted from the G20 Bali Leaders' Declaration in November - were "agreed to by all member countries except Russia and China". Russia's foreign ministry said it regretted the fact that "the activities of the G20 continue to be destabilised by the Western collective and used in an anti-Russian... way". It accused the United States, European Union and G7 nations of "clear blackmail", urging them to "acknowledge the objective realities of a multipolar world". Ajay Seth, a senior Indian official, said in a press conference that Russian and Chinese representatives did not agree to the wording on Ukraine because "their mandate is to deal with economic and financial issues". "On the other hand, all the other 18 countries felt that the war has got implications for the global economy" and needed to be mentioned, he added. German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, said: "This is a war. And this war has a cause, has one cause, and that is Russia and Vladimir Putin. That must be expressed clearly at this G20 finance meeting." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64773618
Those old enough to remember the Carter administration are as likely to recall stagflation, gasoline price hikes, and the Iran hostage crisis as the Middle East peace accord Carter brokered at Camp David or his forward-thinking environmental policies. Yet with the perspective of time, it is now clear that President Carter was a gifted leader. As his wife Rosalynn once told me, it is easy to lead the American people where they want to go, but it takes vision to lead them where they don’t. In international affairs, Carter faced down Republican threats that his party would pay at the polls for “giving away” the Panama Canal. Amid skeptical prognostications that the Panamanians would be unable to run the canal without US help, he signed the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties that ended decades of pseudo-colonial domination of a neighboring country. Relations with Latin America improved, security threats to the canal ended, and Panama re-engineered the locks and widened the canal to return it to profitability. https://www.smerconish.com/exclusive-content/jimmy-who-a-legacy-of-leadership/
Trump’s administration withdrew an Obama-era proposal to require faster brakes on trains carrying highly flammable materials, ended regular rail safety audits of railroads, and mothballed a pending rule requiring freight trains to have at least two crew members. He also placed a veteran of the chemical industry in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety office, where she made industry-friendly changes to how the agency studied health risks. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/22/donald-trump-ohio-visit-questions-safety-legacy-00083885
The White House is firing back at Republicans following the toxic East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, blaming the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress for undoing Obama-era rail safety measures designed to avert such disasters. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/22/white-house-blame-trump-gop-east-palestine-spill/11322623002/ The safety rule, issued in 2015, required electronically controlled brakes – which apply braking simultaneously across a train rather than railcar by railcar over a span of seconds – to be installed by 2023. However, the rule was narrowly crafted and only applied to certain “high-hazard flammable trains” carrying at least 20 consecutive loaded cars filled with liquids such as crude oil. The Trump administration repealed the brakes requirement three years later, stating that its cost exceeded its benefits. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/02/14/norfolk-southerns-ohio-train-derailment-emblematic-rail-trends/11248956002/
Mexico Hobbles Election Agency That Helped End One-Party Rule. The changes come ahead of a presidential election next year and are part of a pattern of challenges to democratic institutions across the Western Hemisphere. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/world/americas/mexico-election-law.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20230222&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=91739846&segment_id=126035&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4
A tough new immigration measure could disqualify the vast majority of migrants from being able to seek asylum at the southern border. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/us/biden-asylum-rules.html?
It’s not at all hard to imagine that improving the incentives to focus on medically effective care could limit cost growth to well below what the C.B.O. is projecting, even now. And if we can do that, the rise in entitlement spending over the next three decades might be more like 3 percent of G.D.P. That’s not an inconceivable burden. America has the lowest taxes of any advanced nation; given the political will, of course we could come up with 3 percent more of G.D.P. in revenue. So no, Social Security and Medicare aren’t inherently unsustainable, doomed by demography. We can keep these programs, which are so deeply embedded in American society, if we want to. Killing them would be a choice. https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=116&emc=edit_pk_20230221&instance_id=85942&nl=paul-krugman&productCode=PK®i_id=91739846&segment_id=125917&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F809abdb0-bb70-51af-b349-8d98d06de2c5&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4
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Conservatives denounced left-wing bias among the news media and elite thinkers for decades before acting to alter the landscape. By founding Fox News and think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, they expanded the reach of conservative voices in America — and counterbalanced what was once a liberal tilt. Now, some conservatives are following a similar playbook to change higher education. https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230217&instance_id=85599&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN®i_id=91739846&segment_id=125560&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F3d8b398c-4443-5214-aa85-2a9bf9157ee3&user_id=c169c5df23b5bd14a95e704d648953e4
It might be comforting to think that American democracy has made it past the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.But our research shows that a wide range of the American people, of all political stripes, seek leaders who are fundamentally anti-democratic. As scholars interested in how committed citizens are to democracy, we wanted to measure whether regular Americans want someone who will abide by democratic traditions and practices or dispense with them. https://www.nextgov.com/ideas/2023/02/large-numbers-americans-want-strong-rough-anti-democratic-leader/382656/
When President Joe Biden took to the House Chamber on Tuesday for his annual State of the Union address, his message was one of unadulterated optimism – even in the face of open hostility. The spectacle of Biden smiling and offering a pointed riposte through multiple rounds of heckling from some House Republicans was, in many ways, an apt illustration of his presidency and a useful preview of his likely 2024 candidacy. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/politics/takeaways-biden-state-of-the-union-address/index.html
Joe Biden goes full populist as he searches for common ground. Biden sounded more like a consumer advocate than a head of state. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/08/politics/biden-populist-sotu-what-matters/index.html
Of [US operating budget dollar] about 62 cents is spent on benefit programs that Americans are entitled to receive at certain ages or income thresholds.Of that, Social Security gets 22 cents, Medicare gets 17 cents and Medicaid gets 10 cents. About 14 cents go to national defense.Almost 8 cents pays interest to holders of Treasury bonds and that can’t be touched.That leaves about 16 cents spent on the rest of the federal government and its programs – things like border protection, air traffic control and farm subsidies. Everything funded by that 16 cents could be eliminated and the government still would run a deficit, our colleague Glenn Kessler notes. That’s because under this rubric, the federal government is spending 17 cents more than it receives in revenue. https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?trackId=598b051fae7e8a68162a1429&s=63d2f9c91b79c61f876766d6&linknum=4&linktot=44
Democrats have decided on a different tactic for the three GOP-led select committees: They want in, even if they don’t think all of the committees (such as the “government weaponization” one) have a legitimate purpose. “It is our intent to seat members on … every select committee, every subcommittee that the leadership on the majority side advances,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told reporters in January. https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?trackId=598b051fae7e8a68162a1429&s=63dc32b51b79c61f8776b737&linknum=4&linktot=44
Throughout his long political career, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invoked a popular turn of phrase. Israel, he has often said, is an “oasis of democracy” in a region defined by its absence. Israel’s freedoms, its elections and its rule of law, the argument went, stood in contrast to the status quo in the Middle East, where absolute monarchs and flailing autocrats largely hold sway. Of course, the formulation always overlooked the millions of Palestinians who live as second-class citizens in their own homeland, shorn of the same rights and freedoms afforded to Israeli neighbors. That reality has long been accepted by the West and swept under the rug by successive Israeli governments. Under Netanyahu’s watch, Jewish settlements expanded in the West Bank, further undermining the possibility of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state ever emerging. No matter — in the eyes of successive administrations in Washington and a bipartisan critical mass in Congress, Israel was a land of “shared values” and could do little wrong. Recent developments, though, are making the “oasis of democracy” look a little more like a mirage. https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?trackId=598b051fae7e8a68162a1429&s=63d0bc5d1b79c61f8763a2f8&linknum=5&linktot=73
...recriminations continue in the Republican-led House after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that he will unilaterally block Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell from serving on the Intelligence Committee, days after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) formally recommended the reappointment of the two California Democrats. Another fight is brewing over whether McCarthy will ask the full House to deny Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) a spot on the Foreign Affairs Committee. The maneuvering comes amid a continuing standoff over raising the nation’s debt limit that has already heightened tensions in the early days of GOP control. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/25/house-republicans-mccarthy-committees-debt-limit/?utm_campaign=wp_politics_am&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_politics&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F38f13db%2F63d11aea1b79c61f8763e1b5%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F12%2F55%2F63d11aea1b79c61f8763e1b5&wp_cu=639b84fe3ddb27af65b99f6cacbf7a23%7CC0DBC114CDAE2BA7E0430100007FAD1A
Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church. “Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” Francis said during an exclusive interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. Francis acknowledged that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality or discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and he himself referred to the issue in terms of “sin.” But he attributed such attitudes to cultural backgrounds, and said bishops in particular need to undergo a process of change to recognize the dignity of everyone. https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-gay-rights-ap-interview-1359756ae22f27f87c1d4d6b9c8ce212?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01&utm_content=eyebrows
House Republicans’ attempt to bring a border security bill to the floor as early as this week was thwarted after backlash from more moderate Republicans, delaying not only a pledge Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made to a handful of lawmakers but also the fulfillment of a key campaign promise to a Republican base eager for tougher immigration laws. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/23/house-republicans-immigration-legislation/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F38ed06d%2F63cec208ef9bf67b236e3aac%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F14%2F73%2F63cec208ef9bf67b236e3aac&wp_cu=639b84fe3ddb27af65b99f6cacbf7a23%7CC0DBC114CDAE2BA7E0430100007FAD1A
The giant spending bill passed by Congress last month kept the government open. But it also quietly rewrote huge areas of health policy: Hundreds of pages of legislation were devoted to new health care programs. The legislation included major policy areas that committees had been hammering away at all year behind the scenes — like a big package designed to improve the nation’s readiness for the next big pandemic. It also included items that Republicans had been championing during the election season — like an extension of telemedicine coverage in Medicare. And it included small policy measures that some legislators have wanted to pass for years, like requiring Medicare to cover compression garments for patients with lymphedema. Though the bill was primarily designed to fund existing government programs, a lot of health policy hitched a ride. Big, “must-pass” bills like the $1.7 trillion omnibus often attract unrelated policy measures that would be hard to pass alone. But the scope of the health care legislation in last month’s bill is unusual. At the end of 2022, congressional leaders decided to do something that staffers call “clearing the decks,” adding all the potentially bipartisan health policy legislation that was ready and written. There turned out to be a lot to clear. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/upshot/new-health-policies-budget.html
Trump 2024. Trump’s 2016 campaign was an insurgency. He found his base by blasting his message through cable TV. He shunned the establishment and flouted conservative doctrine. And he seemed to love being hated by much of his party. Trump’s 2024 campaign is, at least by comparison, traditional. He hasn’t held a big arena rally yet and he’s not dominating the cable airwaves like he did at the peak of the 2016 primary. Instead, he’s hosting small events in early primary states and courting the state and local establishments — just like a more typical front-runner would. And he’s no longer a highly divisive figure within the GOP. He registers just under 50 percent in the national primary polls, but his favorability rating is above 70 percent. His plurality coalition could easily grow into a majority. He’s a former president — the ultimate party insider — with a path to an outright majority. Trump is no longer ideologically unique within the GOP. Potential competitors, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former vice president Mike Pence, match Trump’s hard-line position on immigration and share his enthusiasm for the culture wars. Trump will have to defend himself as other conservative populists try to eat into his base. Normal Republican candidates might, again, splinter the vote and allow Trump to win the nomination with a plurality of the primary votes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/02/trump-polls-republican-opponents/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F390435f%2F63dbefbb1b79c61f87761280%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F17%2F72%2F63dbefbb1b79c61f87761280&wp_cu=639b84fe3ddb27af65b99f6cacbf7a23%7CC0DBC114CDAE2BA7E0430100007FAD1A
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has formally recommended that Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell be reappointed to the House Intelligence Committee, escalating a clash with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has vowed to deny spots on the panel to both California Democrats. In a letter dated Saturday, Jeffries argued that McCarthy has no justifiable reason not to accept his appointments of Schiff, who served as chairman of the Intelligence panel until Republicans took control of the chamber, and Swalwell. Harv says vengeance for Jan.6 committee work. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/23/intelligence-committee-schiff-mccarthy-greene-gosar/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F38ed163%2F63cec208ef9bf67b236e3aac%2F598b051fae7e8a68162a1429%2F29%2F73%2F63cec208ef9bf67b236e3aac&wp_cu=639b84fe3ddb27af65b99f6cacbf7a23%7CC0DBC114CDAE2BA7E0430100007FAD1A
As Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor on Monday, “If House Republicans are serious about taking the debt limit hostage in exchange for spending cuts, the new rules that they adopted require them to bring a proposal to the floor of the House and show the American people precisely what kind of cuts they want to make. It’s not enough to hide behind the old GOP talking point about ‘wasteful spending’; when you’re in the majority, substance counts.” He added for good measure: “Americans are going to be left with some pretty big questions. Republicans say they want spending cuts. Well, does that mean cuts to Social Security? Or Medicare? Or child care? Or Pell grants? Or our military? Or pay raises for our troops? Or funding police and law enforcement?” Republicans have never taken much interest in fiscal sobriety when their party controlled the White House. This was especially true during the Trump administration, which as conservative economist Charles Blahous showed in a 2021 study, deserves a sizable share of the blame for deficits in recent years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/25/democrats-plan-debt-ceiling-republicans-blunder/
Thirty years ago, another president asserted authoritarian control. But this time, there was a critical difference: As populist president, Castillo had no support for his coup. The military and the judiciary quickly rejected his attempt last month. Castillo’s dramatic fall from power shook Peru, a country of 33 million people that is the fifth-most populous in Latin America. His supporters have protested across the country and at least 55 people have been killed, often in clashes with security forces.
Political consensus comment ends here