The Democratic Debate on Medicare For All

Recently, the Washington Post reported that Bernie Sanders has revised his Medicare For All plan to try to protect the legitimate interests of unionized workers who have their health insurance through collective bargaining agreements with their employers.  See https://wapo.st/2P7eMYs

While it is good that Bernie recognized an unintended consequence of his plan, his proposed protection does not guarantee success. The right to renegotiate a contract to move money currently going to private insurance premiums does not assure that employers will agree. Moreover, millions of workers and retirees have such employer-based plans which are not part of collective bargaining agreements. Indeed, federal government workers and private sector workers who are deemed supervisory or managerial cannot compel their employers to collectively bargain over any forms of compensation.

A virtue of this long nomination campaign is that it can force examination of big policy proposals, and expose unintended consequences. How candidate proponents of such policies respond will tell us a lot about their electability, and, just as importantly, whether they would be successful presidents.

In Medicare For All, Bernie’s response is nowhere near enough to address the legitimate concerns presented by his proposal. Nor, so far, have Elizabeth Warren’s or Kamila Harris’s.  Pete Buttigieg’s Medicare For All Who Want It plan does resolve those concerns.

Voters who like Joe Biden’s “build on Obamacare” approach, but are concerned that Joe is not sharp enough to conduct campaign we need or to be an effective president should take a closer look at Pete.

"Racism -- A Basic Flaw in Our Society" (The Hatchet Oct. 31, 1967)

“He’s right, too!”

From the August 8, 2019 Washington Jewish Week. https://washingtonjewishweek.com/56548/letters-aug-8-2019/editorial-opinion/, commenting on https://washingtonjewishweek.com/55853/takoma-park-screening-met-with-protests-celebration/news/

“Who’s the Puppet?”

“Who’s the Puppet?”

The Trump/Epstein story reported in Thursday’s Washington Post is sleazy and would be a great episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and [In]famous. However, the most significant part of this report is buried near the end:

“Four years after [Trump outbid Epstein for] the Gorman mansion, Trump sold it to Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, more than doubling his investment.”  

Now let’s connect some dots. A December 2017 Dallas Morning News
article on the Bank of Cyprus reported that Rybolovlev is part owner of the Bank (which was run by Wilbur Ross before Ross became Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, and is the center of much Trump-related corruption), and included this information:

“Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russia's 'Fertilizer King,' owns a 3.3 percent stake in the bank. Rybolovlev purchased Trump's mega mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million, which allowed Trump to more than double his $41 million investment in the property in four years. The timing of the purchase was essentially a Trump rescue package Trump was suing Deutsche Bank, his one remaining creditor, to try to avoid repaying a $40 million real estate loan. He lost.”

There is no such thing as a mega-rich Russian businessman who is not part of the Putin Machine. The Putin Machine bailed out Trump in 2009.

 “Who’s the puppet?”  Indeed.

Why is Pete Buttigieg out-fund-raising his Democratic Presidential Nomination competitors?

Yesterday, my wife excitedly passed a link to me with the this subject line:

Subject: Best Pete Interview yet!!!  

http://digg.com/video/kara-swisher-pete-buttigieg

The interview was conducted by Vox’s tech reporter. Many of the questions and answers will be familiar to those who have been following the campaigns closely. But what particularly blew Bobbi away was Pete’s facility in discussing tech matters (a discussion which comes in the latter part of the interview). I was less excited, but only because his ability to intelligently and wisely discuss any matter important to the governance is something I now take as a given.

There has been much interest in the fact that, in the last quarter, Pete Buttigieg out fund-raised every other Democratic presidential candidate.  The talking heads note that Pete’s poll numbers lag behind his fund-raising, noting that he will still have to turn his resources into much wider-spread support. True, but I think they are failing to focus on a more interesting, and more significant, question:  Why has such a national political newcomer been able to raise so much money, mostly in modest individual amounts?

Here is my hypothesis: Pete is so impressive to those who take the opportunity to listen to him, that they quickly become supporters. As he talks with more and more people, his support will grow. And given the fact that none of his better-known competitors are creating huge public support in the nominating process, the dynamic of this national job interview to be the Democratic Presidential nominee may well turn his way. For the sake of our future, I hope I am right. 

Reflections on the Half-Century Since We Landed on the Moon

Neil Armstrong with the American Flag on the Moon

For those of us who remember the July 20, 1969 Moon Landing, the commemorations present an opportunity to reflect on the time, and the half-century since.

Unlike perhaps most Americans on 7/20/69, I was not glued to a television screen. Rather, I was flying from Atlanta to Memphis (with a stop in Birmingham). With the rest of my VISTA group, I had just completed my training and was about to begin a year as a counselor and teacher at the Shelby County Penal Farm.

The event, for me, was one of conflicting feelings.

Me at the Shelby County Penal Farm (taken by an Office of Economic Opportunity photographer)

On the one hand, I was in awe of the technological achievement and the bravery of the astronauts. And it symbolized what America could do when it put its collective mind to it.

On the other hand, I was acutely aware that this same American self-confidence could become arrogance, as the tragic disaster of our War in Vietnam was then demonstrating. And my admiration of the achievement was tempered by the fact that so much of our own country was still mired in poverty, as this recent piece in Smithsonian Magazine reminds us.

So what has the last half-century brought us, and what have we brought to it?

In the United States, for the first 47 years of this half-Century, we saw (and helped create) enormous progress (albeit, not enough) on environmental matters, gender equality, reproductive rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and health care access.  This progress was uneven.

**  The lessons we had thought we learned from Vietnam were disregarded when the Bush II Administration invaded Iraq in 2003, leading to an horrific chain of events that destroyed millions of lives in the Middle East and is destabilizing democracy in Europe.

**  The optimism of election night 2008, when the election of President Obama by a very solid majority of the popular vote and Democratic control of both houses of Congress, seemed to portend a new day, picking up where the Vietnam-induced collapse of the Great Society coalition left off. But now the Trump Administration is hell-bent on destroying all the progress made by the Obama Administration.

**  The progress we had made in dealing with America's Original Sin of Racism -- often two steps forward, but one step back -- is now under a full-attack which is not dissimilar from destruction of Reconstruction after the Civil War. White Supremacy has always been a cancer on the principles enunciated by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address.  And now, for the first time since the Civil War era, it is being unabashedly used by the President of the United States to divide the nation.

**  The Supreme Court, which had repeatedly saved the nation by applying the Constitution to free Americans from the cul de sacs of racism (e.g., Brown v. Board of Education) and minority rule (e.g., Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carr -- the cases which established the principle of one person/one vote), has now opened the door to big money control of elections (Citizens United), voter suppression (Shelby County v. Holder), and sophisticated partisan gerrymandering of legislative districts (Rucho v. Common Cause)  to subvert majority rule -- and thus the legitimacy of the American political experiment.

**  Moreover, the mixed bag of benefits and dangers from advancing technologies has been staggering.  Significantly, the threats to our democratic system posed by the Russian and allied right-wing misinformation (i.e., lies) are potentially fatal.

**  Climate change has become more and more apparent and its effects pose previously unimaginable dangers.  Yet, after the Obama Administration took national and international steps to deal with the climate crisis, the Trump Administration denies that the crisis even exists and takes aggressive steps to make it worse.

We have the power to succeed in defeating Trump and his allies in next year's election.  If we succeed, we will face the next challenge of keeping Trumpism from coming back in the 2022 mid-terms.

The struggle will not be easy, but it is essential.

Maryland PFLAG Chapters' Letter to Gov. Larry Hogan Urging Action to Protect Transgender Maryland National Guard Service Members and Recruits

                                                                       

May 13, 2019

The Honorable Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland

100 State Circle

Annapolis, Maryland 21401-1925

RE:  Protecting Transgender Maryland National Guard Service Members and Recruits

Dear Governor Hogan:

We are writing as residents and voters in Maryland who are leaders of PFLAG Chapters across the state to urge you to allow transgender people to continue to join and serve in our state’s National Guard. PFLAG, which was founded in 1973 after the simple act of a mother publicly supporting her gay son, is the nation’s largest family and ally organization, uniting LGBTQ with families friends, and allies people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.

Today’s military includes brave transgender people serving our country openly and proudly, with 134,000 retired veterans having done so with honor and sacrifice. Until President Trump ordered the Pentagon to reverse its well-considered decision to embrace patriotic Americans who happened to be transgender, our armed forces had been progressing toward the goal of finding and retaining our best service members, regardless of gender identity. This policy of inclusion has been working well since June 20, 2016. Since that time, a person’s gender status, including being openly transgender, had not disqualified transgender people from enlisting in the military. National Guard members have been trained to effectively follow and be in full compliance with the inclusion of transgender servicemembers, something that, until President Trump’s decision, had been allowed and supported by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The President of the United States has demeaned transgender service members, first through Twitter and now by denying them the ability to serve openly and safely. You can send a very different message in your role as Commander of the Maryland National Guard.  Please support Maryland’s National Guard members and recruits by disregarding the dishonorable and offensive action taken by the President by joining the Governors of California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington who have already gone on record to announce that transgender people will continue to be allowed to serve in the National Guard. Your record in Maryland, which includes the signing of legislation barring licensed medical and mental health professionals from “practicing” discredited conversion therapy on minors, has shown that support for LGBTQ people is bi-partisan. We urge you to continue down that path, which unites, rather than divides, America.

PFLAG stands proudly with transgender people, their families, and future transgender individuals who would put their lives at risk for all of us and our country, whether in the military or in the National Guard.

Thank you for your ongoing leadership, and please consider adding standing up for National Guard volunteers who are transgender to your list of accomplishments that deliver fairness to all Marylanders. (Please send your response to Mark Eckstein of the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG at XXXXXXXXXXXXXX and/or David S. Fishback of the Metro DC Chapter at XXXXXXXXX. 

Sincerely,

Mary Moore, President, Anne Arundel PFLAG Chapter. Annapolis

Yvonne Matthews, President, Bel Air PFLAG Chapter, Bel Air 

Nicole Balbier, President, Catonsville PFLAG Chapter, Catonsville

Max Crownover, President, Columbia/Howard County PFLAG Chapter, Columbia

Erika Walker, President, Frederick PFLAG Chapter, New Market

Louise Ball, President, Leonardtown PFLAG Chapter, Leonardtown, 

L. Claire Hansen, President, Chestertown PFLAG Chapter, Chestertown

Mark DeLancey, President, Salisbury PFLAG Chapter, Salisbury

Michele Copper, Executive Director, Salisbury PFLAG Chapter, Salisbury

Joy Fisher, President, Westminster PFLAG Chapter, Westminster

Mark Eckstein, Maryland Advocacy Co-Chair, Metro DC PFLAG Chapter, Rockville

David S. Fishback, Maryland Advocacy Co-Chair, Metro DC PFLAG Chapter, Olney

John Bartkowiak, Co-Facilitator, Germantown PFLAG Group, Montgomery Village, 

Stephanie Kreps, Co-Facilitator, Germantown PFLAG Group, Gaithersburg