March 8, 2018

Leading feminists on why Times Up and #MeToo mean there's no going back

Rebecca Solnit, Nadifa Mohamed and others on a transformative moment for women and gender equality

Alexandra Topping
Thu 8 Mar 2018

Demands for an end to violence against women, equality in the workplace and more diverse representation in positions of power are nothing new on International Women’s Day – the cry for change is as regular as the day itself. But this year, feminists argue, could be different: people may just be listening.

Since sexual harassment scandals tore through Hollywood last October, the repercussions keep on coming. In multiple workplaces, across unrelated fields, we are starting to see what change might look like.

At the start of the year 300 Hollywood employees, including many high-profile stars, launched the Time’s Up legal fund to support women fighting sexual misconduct; in less than a month, all UK companies with more than 250 employees will have to report their gender pay gaps; across the globe women are confronting repressive laws and speaking up at home and at work.

We asked leading feminist thinkers if they were hopeful this International Women’s Day – and what change they wanted to see.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/sexist-agendas-finally-exposed-international-womens-day

March 8, 2018

Hundreds of Canadian doctors demand lower salaries

By Amy B Wang March 7

In a move that can only be described as utterly Canadian, hundreds of doctors in Quebec are protesting their pay raises, saying they already make too much money.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 700 physicians, residents and medical students from the Canadian province had signed an online petition asking for their pay raises to be canceled. A group named Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime (MQRP), which represents Quebec doctors and advocates for public health, started the petition Feb. 25.

“We, Quebec doctors who believe in a strong public system, oppose the recent salary increases negotiated by our medical federations,” the petition reads in French.

The physicians group said it could not in good conscience accept pay raises when working conditions remained difficult for others in their profession — including nurses and clerks — and while patients “live with the lack of access to required services because of drastic cuts in recent years.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/07/hundreds-of-canadian-doctors-demand-lower-salaries/?utm_term=.3ecf971e3318

March 8, 2018

Rep. Keith Ellison is taking up the Medicare-for-all mantle in the House

Ellison is now the lead sponsor of the House’s single-payer bill.
By Ella Nilsen

Progressive Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) has taken on the mantle of Medicare-for-all in the House of Representatives.

On Wednesday, Ellison received unanimous consent from his House colleagues to become the lead sponsor of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act — originally introduced by former Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). (Conyers resigned in December in the wake of multiple sexual misconduct and harassment claims from former female staffers.)

The bill, more commonly known as the House version of the Medicare-for-all bill, would guarantee universal health care in the United States (Sen. Bernie Sanders is the lead sponsor of the Senate version). It enjoys support from 121 House Democrats — more than 60 percent of the caucus.

To be clear, it has no chance of going anywhere in the current Republican-controlled Congress. But it’s a signal of the policies Democrats could pursue if they’re able to take back the House in 2018 and, furthermore, a signal that more congressional Democrats are getting behind progressive health care policies.

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https://www.vox.com/2018/3/7/17092850/ellison-conyers-medicare-for-all-house-congress-single-payer

March 7, 2018

Exodus from Puerto Rico grows as island struggles to rebound from Hurricane Maria

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/exodus-from-puerto-rico-grows-as-island-struggles-to-rebound-from-hurricane-maria/2018/03/06/b2fcb996-16c3-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.f0ee7d426f17

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — There have been three muses in Ramoncito “El Andino” Rodríguez’s life: love, lament and la isla, Puerto Rico.

The founder of one of the oldest musical acts here, Rodríguez croons boleros and lyrical anthems that at times quicken the heart and at others create a daydreamy lull. Many of them are homages to his motherland, love songs to this Caribbean island. It was a place he never wanted to leave.

But leave, he did.

Rodríguez reluctantly abandoned Puerto Rico after several feet of floodwater spilled into his home during Hurricane Maria in September, destroying his instruments, albums and handwritten compositions. The 78-year-old joined hundreds of thousands of other islanders who boarded flights in the past five months, creating a growing diaspora that, as time passes, is increasingly unlikely to return. Rodríguez and his wife, like so many others, picked Florida, and their stateside sojourn was supposed to be temporary.

They didn’t expect stability back home to be so elusive for so long.

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March 7, 2018

How a Russian-Linked Shell Company Hired An Ex-Trump Aide to Boost Albania's Right-Wing Party in DC

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/how-a-russian-linked-shell-company-hired-an-ex-trump-aide-to-boost-albanias-right-wing-party-in-dc/

Did Russians use the US political system to fuel political discord in the Balkans?

David Corn, Hannah Levintova and Dan Friedman

A former Trump campaign aide working as a lobbyist, a half-million-dollar payment, a conservative Albanian political party, four Republican congressmen, Breitbart News, a kosher restaurateur in New York City, an online dating service that promotes “beautiful” Ukrainian women, and Russian-linked shell companies—these are some of the elements in a bizarre tale of influence-peddling that spurs the suspicion that Russians covertly used Republicans in Washington in an effort to foment political conflict in the Balkans.

It’s a complicated story of international political skullduggery with a dizzying plot: A year ago, a sketchy Scottish firm called Biniatta Trade, which was formed by two Belize-based shell companies, paid a Republican lobbyist and former Trump campaign aide named Nick Muzin for work in the United States to help the Democratic Party of Albania. At the time, a parliamentary election was underway, and the right-wing DPA was challenging a government run by the Socialist Party. That government was led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, who was steering Albania into the European Union and warning of the rise of Russian influence in the Balkans. Coincidentally—or not—the two Belizean shell companies behind Biniatta Trade were both connected to firms controlled by Russians.

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March 7, 2018

Nepotism and corruption: the handmaidens of Trump's presidency

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/nepotism-corruption-handmaiden-trump-presidency

Having Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka, Trump’s daughter, working in the White House is a case study of nepotism gone nuts

Despite its fame, The Apprentice is not the reality television show that best explains Donald Trump’s presidency. To understand what’s going on in the White House, tune into a popular show that had its premiere at about the same time: American Greed.

We learned last week that Jared Kushner met with big-time financial executives in the White House and then hit them up for $500m in loans to his family’s troubled real estate empire, a business in which he maintains an active stake. This truly tops most of the financial chicanery featured on American Greed and I can almost hear Stacey Keach, the actor who narrates the show, setting up the dark contours of Jared’s latest episode of corrupt Washington deal-making.

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The fact that Donald Trump is personally profiting off his presidency is an open secret in Washington as a stroll through the lobby of the new Trump Hotel in the grand Old Post Office proves. Just about anyone who wants a White House favor or a meeting is there, dropping at least $500 per night. Ka-ching for the Trump Organization.

Jared and the Kushner family have been even more brazen. Last year, his sister made news by promising US visas to rich Chinese in exchange for $500,000 investments in Kushner property. In an investigation published in January, the New Yorker revealed that Jared’s meetings with Chinese officials, which included talks about Kushner family business, made US intel officials so nervous that they worried the Chinese were using him as an asset. (And that’s part of why Kushner couldn’t get his security clearance).

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March 7, 2018

Regulate Weapons Like We Do in the Military, Says an Army Officer

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2018/03/an-army-officer-says-regulate-weapons-just-like-we-do-in-the-military/554816/

For the list of previous entries in this series, please see the index at the end of the post. But: if you’re revving up to send me a note explaining what kind of ammunition the AR-15 uses, and how it is similar to (and different from) the military’s M-16 (and so on), please first at least look at this 8,000 word Atlantic article I did on that exact topic more than 35 years ago.

For today’s installment, letters from readers who are familiar with weapons and with the military application of firepower, and the lessons it has for civilian use.

First, from an Army officer:

I’m a Regular Army officer and have served in frontline positions in Iraq (this only to mean that I’ve got a very small slice of experience with the practical application of what military grade weapons were designed to do).

I’m a southerner who grew up shooting .22s in the field behind the house from the time I could hold the rifle.

I own several “classic” firearms like the M-1 Garand and a Martini-Henry, though not an AR-platform, which I shoot enough at work, to be honest (something half-submerged in my mind makes me think that in my house I don’t need a weapon designed exclusively for combat, either for sport or home defense—my German Shepherd is a much better platform for both).

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My niche perspective is this: in the Army, firearms are much more heavily regulated than in civil society. How can so many enthusiastic gun owners say that they hold the military as a model, and yet not accept the strict regulations that go with the military’s use of firearms?

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[Related, by the same author, from first link in above article (AR-15 is worse)] :

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/

M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story

Why the rifles jammed

James Fallows June 1981 Issue

Between 1965 and 1969, more than a million American soldiers served in combat in Vietnam. One can argue that they should never have been sent there, but no one would argue that, once committed to battle, they should have been given inferior equipment. Yet that is what happened. During those years, in which more than 40,000 American soldiers were killed by hostile fire and more than 250,000 wounded, American troops in Vietnam were equipped with a rifle that their superiors knew would fail when put to the test.

March 7, 2018

Trump administrations under-the-radar attack on Medicaid is picking up speed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/03/06/trump-administrations-under-the-radar-attack-on-medicaid-is-picking-up-speed/?utm_term=.1d8d20c679fe


For now, congressional Republicans appear to have set aside efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Yet, it’s increasingly clear that the Trump administration is doubling down on its attempts to seriously weaken the ACA’s Medicaid expansion by making it more difficult for millions of low-income people to get health coverage. The administration’s strategy is now focused on state waivers, which do not require congressional approval. On Monday, the administration approved a sweeping new waiver in Arkansas that could jeopardize coverage for many low-income adults.

Trump administration officials Mick Mulvaney (budget director) and Seema Verma (administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS) both oppose the Medicaid expansion, and Verma approved state proposals that will make it much harder for many who gained coverage under the expansion to maintain it.

Thus far, the Trump administration has approved three broad, restrictive waivers — in Kentucky, Indiana and now Arkansas. All three waivers include a work requirement that will, for the first time, allow these states to take coverage away from those who aren’t working or participating in work-related activities for a minimum number of hours per month, without providing any new job search assistance, job training, transportation, child care, or other services that could help people find and hold a job. CMS calls this “helping people rise out of poverty and live the American Dream”.

This policy is backward for many reasons.
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March 7, 2018

A Government That Looks Like Trump

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-02/jared-kushner-ben-carson-and-how-donald-trump-is-corrupting-politics

It goes beyond Jared Kushner and Ben Carson's $31,000 table.

It would be easy to lose sight in the informational maelstrom of a trio stories involving Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, Trump's personal pilot and his son-in-law-cum-senior adviser, Jared Kushner which bloomed brightly before being eclipsed; they serve as a reminder of the number, degree and reach of the ethical challenges and possible corruption which has become the background music in front of which the other Trump dramas unfold. We have to a depressing extent become benumbed to the fact that we are living in an age aptly dubbed one of "American kakistrocracy" (government by the worst of us), in part because of its pervasiveness and almost mind-boggling scope.

So it's useful to periodically step back and catalogue the extent to which Trumpism is corrupting our governance. The Washington Post reported last month that 9 of 22 of Trump's initial picks for Cabinet-level jobs, 40 percent, "have found themselves facing scrutiny over their actions." While the examples below range from unseemly to potentially illegal they bespeak a cavalier attitude towards government ethics and taxpayer dollars that is illustrative of the Trump era in America.

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March 6, 2018

Sinclair forces pro-Trump propaganda

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/03/05/there-no-audience-boris-epshteyns-pro-trump-propaganda-so-sinclair-forces-it-people/219554

There is no audience for Boris Epshteyn's pro-Trump propaganda, so Sinclair forces it on people

For nearly a year now, Sinclair Broadcast Group has been mandating that its local news stations air commentary segments from former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn. It’s essentially force-feeding local audiences Trump propaganda between community news and weather -- and the numbers show no one would watch it otherwise.

Sinclair is a corporate giant that owns or operates around 190 local TV news stations across the country, and it’s been quietly forcing its stations to air nationally produced right-wing spin for years. But when it hired Epshteyn, fresh from a stint in the Trump administration, to serve as its “chief political analyst,” it was only a matter of time before everyone was paying attention. Numerous media and business reporters highlighted Sinclair’s twofold plan for growing local right-wing news: using the company’s still-pending acquisition of Tribune Media stations to further expand its reach across the country (with its potentially unethical relationship with the Trump administration and its appointees paving the way), and hiring Epshteyn as a new, Trump-aligned star for “must-run” national segments.

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Sinclair is forcibly creating an audience where none exists by requiring its news stations to air Epshteyn’s segments. Even though only about 25 to 50 people seem to care about his commentary enough to seek it out on YouTube, it’s still reaching about 39 percent of U.S. TV households -- and could soon reach an unprecedented 72 percent.

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