babylonsister
babylonsister's JournalJay Inslee Says He May Defy the DNC on a Climate Change Debate
Jay Inslee Says He May Defy the DNC on a Climate Change Debate
He claimed the DNC is effectively blacklisting candidates who want to have one.
Rebecca Leber
Washington Governor Jay Inslee says he wont rule out participating in a primary debate on climate change, a move thatif he followed throughcould risk his being barred from participating in the formal Democratic National Committee sponsored debates.
Inslee claimed the DNC is trying to eliminate an opportunity to have a debate by effectively blacklisting candidates who want to have one.
You have to understand how constricted the opportunity for a full discussion for this will be when were talking about mobilizing and rebuilding the entire economy to decarbonize over the next couple decades, he said. You cant describe the mobilization of the economy in 60-second sound bites.
When asked about this matter, DNC spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa replied, It is the DNCs job to organize the debate schedule, and the ground rules on unsanctioned debates were made clear with all the candidates, including Governor Inslee, and media partners months ago. The DNC welcomes candidates to join issue-specific forums instead.
At the moment, there is no climate change debate scheduled, whether sanctioned by the DNC or not. But Sunrise Movement, the primary Green New Deal advocacy arm that is planning to protest outside the second debate in Detroit, told Mother Jones it is considering staging its own. The American people deserve a climate debate, Varshini Prakash said in a statement to Mother Jones. If the DNC isnt willing to put it on, well consider organizing one ourselves.
more...
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/06/jay-inslee-says-he-may-defy-the-dnc-on-a-climate-change-debate/
D-Day for the VHA?
D-Day for the VHA?
Suzanne Gordon
June 6, 2019
Trump officials set the agency up to fail with a new program that outsources veterans health care to the private sector.
On Thursday June 6, the Trump administrations Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) leadership launched its new Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP). Established under the VA MISSION Act of 2018, the VCCP will outsource the care of millions of Americas most vulnerable veterans to an army of private hospitals, physicians, and other providers.
But rolling out this new initiative on anniversary of D-Day, the allied invasion of Normandy during World War II, could not be more ironic.
Seventy-five years ago, American troops were well prepared for the invasion of Normandy. Today the troops on the home front, the thousands of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, clerks, and administrative staff who have been assigned to help veterans cope with what the Trump Administration has called a revolution in veterans health care, are deeply concerned about the future stability of this new program.
Over the course of the last two months, dozens of physicians, local VA medical center leaders, and union activists (not to mention veterans who are expected to benefit from the new options and representatives of veterans service organizations) have told the Prospect, that the VCCP is deliberately designed to set them, and the VHA, up for failure.
Consider these examples of how the program is being undermined: Under the VCCP, veterans who have to drive 30 to 60 minutes or have to wait more than 20 or 28 days for an appointment will be eligible to see private-sector doctors and hospitals. Veterans and their care providers are supposed to discuss whether moving from the VHA to private-sector care doing so is in the patients best medical interest.
more...
https://prospect.org/article/d-day-vha
What we learned from the Trump family's London vacation
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/jun/06/what-we-learned-from-trump-family-vacation?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR13HFLgzNY2nVK9PxUs4_-_vI2452mHfZ1i6AHbY2zxkWdTjrnM8wIDGsc#Echobox=1559834202
What we learned from the Trump familys London vacation
There must have been reasons for Eric, Donnie Jr, Tiffany and the rest to have accompanied the president on his state visit. Does the answer lie in their social media postings?
Hadley Freeman
Thu 6 Jun 2019 04.00 EDT
Last modified on Thu 6 Jun 2019 17.04 EDT
How did the Trump familys UK state visit look from social media?
Im glad that you have emphasised that this was the Trump familys state visit, as opposed to just the presidents, because this was very much I just need to cue up Sly and the Family Stone a family affairrrrr! Zzzzip! Record scratch! Sorry, that was a bad booking for this party, given that, according to the New Yorker, whenever the man now improbably known as President Trump would visit his casino in New Jersey, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor. So come on, Stones: you can leave through the fire exit, and be quick about it, please. This is a presidential issue.
Quite why US taxpayers were funding Trumps four very definitely adult children to come on a family holiday to London has never been explained by a White House administration whose only consistent policy has been never explain, never apologise. Yet, in an administrative snafu, someone with self-awareness has been hired to run the White Houses Instagram account and he or she notably cut the Trump juniors out of all photos posted of National Lampoons London Vacation. Even Ivanka only makes a fleeting, possibly accidental appearance, even though, as we all know, she has a very important job in the White House that she totally got on her own merit.
Yet while the White House itself might have been strangely reluctant to record this made-for-TV sequel to the 90s comedy King Ralph, the Trump juniors were documenting their every move online with the enthusiasm of, well, hopelessly basic American embarrassments. And given that this presidency was pretty much won on social media, it makes sense to recall its high points the same way.
Ivanka kicked things off with a photo of her outside the V&A, on her way to visit the Christian Dior show, and as an American taxpayer, can I just say how thrilled I am to have paid for her to do this? Other highlights include what is now known as the Children of the Corn photo, in which Ivanka peers mournfully through a window in Buckingham Palace alongside her husband, Jared Kushner, who, judging from his recent TV interview appearance, has Botoxed his brain. Another photo shows her sitting at a boardroom table to discuss advancing our bilateral trade relationship, and of course she would be there, being the wait a minute, let me check my notes. I need more time. Ah! She is the informal adviser to the president. Is that just code for favourite child? Nothing strange AT ALL about her being at these talks, looking very much like Boardroom Barbie. And before anyone cries sexist, I say that not because Ivanka is an attractive woman. I say it because she is an idiot.
Which brings us to Dumb and Dumber, AKA Donnie Jr and Eric. Donnie, sadly, left his girlfriend, former Fox News presenter Kimberly Guilfoyle, back in the US, which is a shame, because she would have been the sludge on this whole trips cowpat pie. Still, Donnie wasnt a total bust: the photo he posted of him and his siblings in the Churchill War Rooms was a real insight for those who ever wondered what Britain would have looked like if the Nazis had won the war. Eric Trump is best known for the lawsuit issued against his charity, and his presence here, alongside his pregnant wife Lara, was so inexplicable I have nothing to say about it. Other than that his fondness for placing a hand on his wifes stomach (Look what I did!!!) in photos is so creepy it should be illegal.
I loved youngest Trump daughter Tiffanys decision to dress like Aunt Pittypat for the dinner at Buck House. But more than that, I loved that dinner. One day, can the person who decided which American was paired with which Brit Ivanka with Liam Fox! Kate Middleton with Steve Mnuchin! Sarah Sanders with Prince Michael! explain how those decisions were made? And will I go to hell for wheeling out the shamelessly predictable Star Wars cantina analogy? Ah well, too late.
But it was the King of Social Media, the big Don, who definitively won this trips social media war, when he marked D-day by furiously tweeting at 1am on Wednesday about psycho Bette Midler. You can take the Trump out of America, but you cant take the Trump out of Trump.
Watching Elizabeth Warren Come Alive
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/elizabeth-warren-and-the-women-who-love-her.html
Watching Elizabeth Warren Come Alive
After the heartbreak of 2016, shes making some women believe that a woman could actually win the presidency.
By Dahlia Lithwick
June 06, 20191:48 PM
snip//
Do I worry that Elizabeth Warren isnt fantastic on the stump? I do. But Warren doesnt seem to care much about being loved. She cares a lot about explaining where things fell apart. So her campaign goes to tiny blue-collar towns in tiny red states she cannot hope to win, and she talks about opioid addiction with Trump supporters who have never met a presidential hopeful and may never meet one again. The labor here is about connecting the dots more than lighting crowds on fire.
Watching this play out on the trail, I couldnt help but think of an idea Rebecca Solnit recently explored in a piece about our possible newfound resistance to great men theories of governance. Solnit suggests that we may be finally tiring of:
What Solnit is holding out as the new ideal of leadership is not, by any stretch, exclusively female. But it is an idea less tethered to goose bumpy speeches, or the kind of charisma that leaves an audience thrilled yet unable to recall any idea actually expressed. Weve now elected two charismatics in a row to the presidency, and the model Warren is building, while not lacking in surface polish, surely doesnt coast on it. Her campaign is less TED talk than graduate seminar. And her students become evangelists of her big ideas more than evangelists of her.
I dont know whether Elizabeth Warren can win the Democratic primary. Im not yet certain a woman can win at all. A country that is OK prosecuting women who miscarry isnt really a country I recognize, much less one I can believe in. Worse, I shudder at the implication that Warren, the woman, will do all the grueling legwork of educating voters about corruption, and banking, and unions, and debt, so that some man in a glittering cape might swoop in and charm our socks off next summer.
Women are often told they react emotionally to candidates, while men are meant to admire and appreciate complex policy. Warren is disrupting that paradigm. She leans less on charisma or charm, or even emotion, than on that elaborate PowerPoint she keeps stowed in her head. Its a different approach from the men out in front of her. A warm and effusive Joe Biden has been coronated the favorite without having to break a sweat. Bernie Sanders has long had some of the most loyal supporters around, in part because he is so unabashedly himself.
But the women who come to these early Warren rallies like being addressed by an adult as adults. At a time when America has devalued teachers, empathy, expertise, and planning for the future, Elizabeth Warren serves as one reminder of what we have lost. It doesnt mean the voters will necessarily throng to her side. It just means that the women I spoke to, and more and more of the women I know, dont mind being educated about how everything went so terribly wrong in their political lifetimes. Elizabeth Warren can explain it, and has a plan for it, and believes she can fix it. Its not glittery, and it may not make your heart beat faster in a stadium. But in a world of noise and bluster, her clarity has its own sort of charm.
Trump's giant gender gap: 62 percent of women say they are unlikely to vote for him
Trump's giant gender gap: 62 percent of women say they are unlikely to vote for him
6/6/2019
In a new poll, a significant majority of American women who are registered to vote say they are not likely to support President Trumps re-election effort in 2020, setting him up with a gender gap that may prove difficult to overcome.
In the June 1-2 survey, 62 percent of female registered voters said they were unlikely to support Trumps bid to obtain a second term. Fifty-three percent said they were very unlikely to back Trump while 9 percent said they were somewhat unlikely. Thirty-eight percent of women who participated said they were likely to back Trump.
In the 2016 election, exit polls indicated that 41 percent of women who voted chose Trump meaning that he has likely lost some support from women during his presidency.
The survey found that male voters were more evenly split about re-electing the president with 51 percent of respondents saying they were either somewhat or very likely to support him and 49 percent saying they were somewhat or very unlikely to support Trump, within the polls 3.1 percent sampling margin of error.
A majority of women of all age groups said they would decline to support Trump while mens opinions differed based upon their ages. A 57 percent majority of men between 18 and 34 said they were unlikely to support Trump while a narrow majority of men 35 and up, 54 percent, said they were likely to support the president.
more...
https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/447308-trumps-giant-gender-gap-62-percent-of-women-say-they-are?fbclid=IwAR1osCTBuusvk5UiS5hqGxf3z9JeKqJlAFTcBrkCSKYM3jLs0TtSpPELXDQ&fbclid=IwAR208HNB-OjYWmutwYeKf-hziF94cqJ-eNLc3k5y9PvMOPKQL1pTZraQi3o
Irish funeral firm rents out four limousines to Trump for $1m
Irish funeral firm rents out four limousines to Trump for $1m
Cars could be used for short jaunt to Doonbeg at a cost of $116,879 per mile or not at all
Rory Carroll and Severin Carrell
Wed 5 Jun 2019 00.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 5 Jun 2019 08.25 EDT
They are, by all accounts, wheels to die for. JP Ward & Sons, an Irish funeral services home, rents out its fleet of Mercedes E-Class limousines not just to mourners but to anyone who wants to travel in style.
A killer price tag has not deterred the latest customer: the White House. It is so keen to use the vehicles for Donald Trumps two-day visit to Ireland that it is spending nearly $1m (£788,000) of US taxpayers money to rent them.
The Trump administration paid the family-owned firm based in Bray, County Wicklow, $935,033 in four tranches, according to USASpending.gov, an official portal that records federal government spending.
The state department did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation that the outlay was to rent four vehicles, which would work out at $233,748 per vehicle.
The presidential entourages hotel bills have also drawn scrutiny. State department documents show US taxpayers have spent $1,223,230 on VIP accommodation at the InterContinental hotel on Park Lane in Mayfair, London.
more...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05/irish-funeral-firm-rents-out-four-limousines-to-trump-for-1m?fbclid=IwAR0hhwuCFIPtL1gIIKWpNIXEaWss0QoPcJijIS8PT2g8QXDsk3qjZvMg2jA
US to label nuclear waste as less dangerous to quicken cleanup
US to label nuclear waste as less dangerous to quicken cleanup
Energy department says labeling some waste as low-level at sites in Washington state, Idaho and South Carolina will save $40bn
Associated Press
Wed 5 Jun 2019 17.33 EDT
The US government plans to reclassify some of the nations most dangerous radioactive waste to lower its threat level, outraging critics who say the move would make it cheaper and easier to walk away from cleaning up nuclear weapons production sites in Washington state, Idaho and South Carolina.
The Department of Energy said on Wednesday that labeling some high-level waste as low level will save $40bn in cleanup costs across the nations entire nuclear weapons complex. The material that has languished for decades in the three states would be taken to low-level disposal facilities in Utah or Texas, the agency said.
The agency will maintain standards set by the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the goal of getting the lower-level waste out of these states without sacrificing public safety, Dabber said.
Critics said its a way for federal officials to walk away from their obligation to properly clean up a massive quantity of radioactive waste left from nuclear weapons production dating to the second world war and the cold war.
The waste is housed at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina, the Idaho National Laboratory and Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state the most contaminated nuclear site in the country.
more...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05/us-to-label-nuclear-waste-as-less-dangerous-to-quicken-cleanup?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=fb_us&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2PJIiapyWPoT3R2GKL8IKsuHYzTD_kleSJTIUOjCfEcp1BJK6OPTr4Pjw#Echobox=1559772759
House Democrats plan event to scrutinize Trump's mental health
Why wait until July?
House Democrats plan event to scrutinize Trump's mental health
By Nathaniel Weixel - 06/05/19 04:55 PM EDT
House Democrats plan to hold an event intended to highlight what they say is President Trumps deteriorating mental health.
House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said he and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) will host Dr. Bandy Lee, a Yale School of Medicine psychiatrist who edited the best-selling book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.
We are planning to do something where she can make a presentation to other members, so that they'll be aware of what she's been working on, Yarmuth told The Hill in a brief interview.
Yarmuth said he anticipates the event, which was first reported by the Washington Examiner, will happen sometime in July.
Yarmuth said he thinks its important that members of Congress and the public understand the position of Lee and the other psychologists in the book, which argues that Trumps mental health has deteriorated to the point where it poses a threat to the country.
more...
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/447176-house-democrats-plan-event-to-scrutinize-trumps-mental-health?fbclid=IwAR2Buuavmtz_Qug4KZXHzH4XLJNG-LQcq3kAF-QGhQaxTPqgLIoVnfYGaAc
Trump Claims He Made The Air Cleaner Just By Being President
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/06/05/trump-claims-he-made-the-air-cleaner-just-by-being-president.html
Posted on Wed, Jun 5th, 2019 by Jason Easley
Trump Claims He Made The Air Cleaner Just By Being President
In Ireland, Trump claimed that the US now has the cleanest air and water in the world because he is president
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https://twitter.com/politicususa/status/1136304878463197184
The US doesnt have the cleanest air and water in the world
According to the American Lung Associations State Of The Air report for 2019:
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More than four in 10 Americans, approximately 43.3 percent of the population, live in counties that have monitored unhealthy ozone and/or particle pollution. The number of people exposed to unhealthy air increased to nearly 141.1 million. That represents an increase from the past two reports: higher than the 133.9 million in the 2018 report (covering 2014-2016) and the 125 million in the 2017 report (covering 2013-2015). Close to 20.2 million people, or 6.2 percent, live in 12 counties with unhealthful levels for all three measures.
Trump is lying about the state of US air and water
Due to Trumps rollback of environmental regulations, the nations air and water are getting dirtier, not cleaner. The progress that has been made has nothing to do with Trump and is attributed to the Clean Air Act, which was passed in 1970.
Trump is trying to deny climate change with an empty claim that everything is great. He believes that his mere presence in the White House has cleaned up the nations air and water.
His bragging would be silly if the policy behind it werent making the American people sicker every day.
Warren's Astonishing Plan for Economic Patriotism
Warrens Astonishing Plan for Economic Patriotism
Robert Kuttner
June 4, 2019
I have been a fan of Elizabeth Warren for a long time. Her combination of deep knowledge of how American capitalism works, her capacity to narrate the lived experience of American working families and tie it to radical reforms, and her sheer integrity are unsurpassed.
Her rollout of one brilliant policy proposal after another and her ability to connect those to a political understanding of the American situation has been just stunning. But Warrens latest plan is in a class by itself, even for Warren. She calls it an Agenda for Economic Patriotism.
Warrens proposal does nothing less than turn inside out the globalist assumptions pursued by the past several administrations, Democrat and Republican alike. Where they have pursued more globalization of commerce as an end in itself (and as a profit center for U.S.-based multinational corporations and banks), Warrens goal is to bring production and good jobs home.
Even better, she knits it all together with a coherent plan, beginning with a new Department of Economic Development with the sole responsibility to create and defend quality, sustainable American jobs.
more...
https://prospect.org/article/warrens-astonishing-plan-economic-patriotism
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