By Prof. Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American

What you are witnessing here is something a regular citizen would not have the ability to do in a court of law. So far, the court has shown much lenience for his and his attorneys’ antics. I have not seen this being tolerated. It is meant to wear the system down or provoke a response from the judges. A response which would play back to the fools in support of trump. Wisely, the court sticks to its regime.

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I will not spend the rest of 2024 focusing on Trump and the chaos in the Republican Party, but today it has been impossible to look away.

In Trump’s election interference trial in Manhattan, Judge Juan Merchan this morning dismissed one of the selected jurors after

Firearms and Public Health in the United States

David Hemenway, Ph.D

New England Journal of Medicine

I have added things I know of to this article. I have an aversion to the word gun or guns by themselves. So get used to it if you expect to comment on this issue. Firearms are killing tools. If you shoot targets like I did pre-USMC, you get really good at staying in the black at various distances.

This is a good article. It keeps the tragedy of the Columbine Massacre front and center. It should not be forgotten.

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On April 20, 1999, in Colorado, two high school students shot and killed 12 of their fellow students and a teacher. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. What has happened in the

Atlanta USPS Regional Processing and Distribution Centers crashes on launch

by Steve Hutkins

Save the Post Office

This is a long post. It is the only way Steve can get it across the issues created by Louis Dejoy’s incompetence. Look out 2024 Presidential Election, we will have a battle on our hands. Think of SCOTUS.

With the botched-up implementation of the new USPS Processing and Distribution Centers going on the way they are, we will see significant issues with the upcoming 2024 presidential elections. Time to stop the implementation and take alternative precautions to insure postal deliveries. And Fire Louis DeJoy.

Below? A picture of the person who “may” have the biggest impact on the 2024 election. All dressed out in a suit in a

SWI swissinfo.ch

Switzerland exceeded its voluntary gas savings target this winter. Compared to average consumption between 2017 and 2022, the target was to reduce gas consumption by 15%. However, according to provisional government figures, it was 23% less.

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Keystone-SDA

The target was 3,997 gigawatt hours (GWh) of gas savings, regardless of the weather, over the winter half-year, i.e. from the beginning of October 2023 to the end of March 2024. According to the Swiss Federal Office of Energy’s (SFOE) dashboard, 6,102 GWh have now been saved, although the figures for March are only estimates.  

January, which was 1.5°C warmer than the standard temperature, was the only one of the six autumn

By Clare Pastore

The Conversation

A small city in Oregon with one homeless shelter is enforcing a local anti-camping law. Enforcing it against people sleeping in public using a blanket or any other rudimentary protection against the weather. Enforcing it even if there was nowhere else to go.

By taking up City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, SCOTUS will decide whether it is unconstitutional to punish homeless people for doing in public the things necessary to survive. Things such as sleeping outside, when there is no option to do them in private.

Some Background “Oyez“

Grants Pass, Oregon has a population of approximately 38,000. Of the population, somewhere between 50 and 600 persons are unhoused. Whatever the exact number of unhoused

George Stephanopoulos asked New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu 

by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American

This Week, host George Stephanopoulos, “Just to sum up,”

“You support [Trump] for president even if he’s convicted in [the] classified documents [case]. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the last election. You support him for president even if he’s convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?”

Sununu answered: “Yeah. Me and 51% of America.”

AB: I guess integrity goes out the window when it comes to politics and principle.

Aside from its

Medicaid Renewals

Of the people retaining Medicaid Coverage as of April 11, 2024 . . . Fifty-nine percent were renewed on an ex parte basis while 41% were renewed through a renewal form, though rates varied by state. Federal rules require states to first try to complete administrative (or “ex parte”) renewals by verifying ongoing eligibility through available data sources. Sources such as state wage databases. Doing this before they send a renewal form or requesting documentation from an enrollee.

Retaining Medicaid State by State

Fifty-nine percent of the people retaining Medicaid Coverage were able to retain Medicaid Through Ex Parte Processes. April 11, 2024.

As seen again and again, Texas does their best to eliminate those

By KFF

Pulled together data from KFF to get an idea of what is happening with US healthcare. Big issue is people do not know. Another issue is state’s resistance to enrolling people. Hope this helps . . .

Recent data on monthly Medicaid disenrollments, renewals, overall enrollment and other key indicators.

Figure 1 above . . .

At least 20,104,000 Medicaid enrollees have been disenrolled as of April 11, 2024, based on the most current data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. ~Thirty-one percent of people with a completed renewal were disenrolled in reporting states. Sixty-nine percent 69%, or 43.6 million enrollee’s coverage renewed (one reporting state does not include data on renewed enrollees). Data reported by states

Originally, I put this into print November 2013. I took from many sources to complete it. I think it meshes well and still stands the test of time. The student loan issues and debt are still in existence. The debt owed is fare larger now with much of it being accumulated interest on principle. The cause of much of this is largely due to Biden’s policies before he became President up though 2005. The numbers for those having student loans is far greater as is the debt also.

Previously, I had written on Fair Market Value and its use by the CBO’s Douglas Elmendorf to rate the risk of Student Loans as advocated by both The New America Foundation and the Heritage Foundation. A rebuttal answer to a partisan CBO, the right-leaning New America Foundation,

The one thing we keep on seeing is the manipulation of supply chain by circumstance to achive manufacturing shortfall, and influence to maximize profits. Much of what we have and are experiencing was avoidable. The tools exist to give better perspectives of what is going on from start to finish of product. As you read through my telling of what I see, you will get near the end and run into a link to a Vox article. It support what I am saying and have seen over the decades.

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A quarter of a century ago, Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation called attention to the acceleration of corporate, quasi-monopolistic control of America’s food system. The fallout of which has led to harmful consequences for workers, consumers, livestock, and the

By Dean Baker

Center for Economic and Policy Research

The inflation hawks took March’s CPI as cause for celebration, inflation may not be dead yet. There is no doubt that it was a disappointing report for those hoping we could put the pandemic inflation behind us. However, there still is not much basis for thinking the Fed needs to get out the nukes and start shooting big-time.

The key point to remember is this inflation continues to be driven overwhelmingly by rent. We know rental inflation will be falling because we have data on marketed units. The ones changing hands show sharply lower rental inflation. In some cases, indicators such as the BLS index for new tenants, actually show deflation.

The CPI rental indexes will follow the index

Arizona is a state which does not stand on its own for protecting the rights of its citizens. In this case, we speak of a woman’s right to determine what is right for her individual self and body. The Supreme Court revived a near-total abortion ban with its support of a 160-year-old law. The law provides no exceptions for rape or incest.

And, in its 4-2 opinion, the conservative majority wrote:

“Physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal.”

Arizona citizens may get a chance to decide whether to keep the ban or revoke it this November. What was an anti-abortion stance (quietly and some vocally) for Republicans in AZ, has become “oh, we are neutral on this issue.” The Republican

I touched on a commentary at another site where the commentary was about healthcare. The sites author was advocating for the increase of the Social Security cap only on high income earners. There is a ground swell for taxing the rich more, which is acceptable to most. When we look at this closely, there is an argument for some of this to occur. The level or percentage of total income exposed to Social Security taxes has decreased for the higher in income. We could improve upon this and increase Social Security taxable income accordingly.

Or we could increase the tax on income for Social Security and also increase taxes on the rich?However, while advocating the Northwest Plan, the author could not see the viability of its impact on individuals even

Since I use the VA, I find this message by Suzanne and Steve to be discerning. I had thought with the changes in leadership, the VA would begin to act like a VA and take back all of the programs which were being out sourced to external expensive healthcare. Study after study has shown, VA care is as good and more likely better than commercial enterprise healthcare. And yet, we are here again fighting a battle to keep the VA. This should have been won and ended over the last couple of years.

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Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early

While Project 2025 plots VA dismantling, its Biden-appointed leader tells workers to ‘stay out of politics.’

The American Prospect

During a recent campaign speech in North Carolina, former President Donald

An older salesman (Lou Haer) used to call on me at Oscar Mayer when I was buying all of OM’s packaging and labels. We would talk and have lunch. Visited him at his home in the suburbs of Chicago with my three and my wife. He took my two younger boys and I trout fishing at a manmade large aerated pond. They enjoined it immensely at 10 and eight years old.

He had a philosophy though for college football and other sports, which the students gave greater emphasis too than studies.

“Give them a Degree in Football!” Read on . . .

Deion Sanders rips into team after email from professor, exposes player’s NFL Draft grades, Athlon Sports | News, Expert Predictions, and Betting Previews, Kevin Borba

“This semester has been extremely challenging for

The Biden administration will soon roll out a new student loan forgiveness proposal that could impact millions of Americans. For years, Joe Biden has been against Student Loan forgiveness. Now he is seeking forgiveness for making student loans totally unforgiveable.

The proposed student loan program is smaller in scope than President Joe Biden’s first education debt relief plan which the Supreme Court ultimately blocked. Rough estimates by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz, the new aid package could still forgive the debt for as many as 10 million Americans.

The Wall Street Journal says President Joe Biden is planning to provide details of his new debt forgiveness plan during a speech Monday (April 8?) in Madison, Wisconsin. The timing of

Brief recital of the costs and efforts of hospitals getting reimbursed by commercial healthcare insurance. It appears to be worsening. And the efforts to collect are costly.

A Survey of Healthcare Insurance Practices

Survey Methodology

– 304 respondents, representing 772 hospitals, completed the survey. Not every respondent answered each question. All respondents are members of the American Hospital Association.– Web-survey administered between December 2021 and February 2022. Some participants opted to complete the survey using handwritten responses.– Results represent hospitals in 47 states. No responses were received from hospitals or health systems in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, D.C

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Payer

By Christina Clark

Iconic Detroit writer and activist John Sinclair died on Tuesday morning at the age of 82 after spending two weeks at DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital for declining health. His cause of death was congestive heart failure, his publicist told the Detroit News. 

An advocate for his art, Sinclair served as the manager for MC5, a rock band from Lincoln Park, between 1966 and 1969, and was well-known for his support of the Civil Rights movement, having co-founded the anti-racist White Panther Party, which worked alongside the Black Panther Party, as well as his work to legalize marijuana in Michigan.

In 1969, he was arrested for possession of two joints and sentenced to 10 years in prison. A protest in support of Sinclair known as

Not 100 percent here. You will have to travel to the rest of the story to get the complete version of the Summary and My Take by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Official Newsletter on recent events. It is interesting and there is enough here to draw a conclusion.

1 When night came, the white waves rolled back and forth in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea’s voice to the men on the shore. And they felt that they could then understand. 

Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat”

– My Take These final words of Stephen Crane’s famous short story “The Open Boat” have haunted me since I first read them when I was a teenager. What did the “great sea’s voice” tell them that they “finally” understood? What mysteries were revealed?

In the

Happy Easter, or happy whatever way you celebrate the coming of spring. Yesterday the good Christian Tim Walberg, who has ineffectually represented a chunk of southern Michigan in Congress since 2010, apparently called for us to use nuclear weapons in Gaza to “get it over quick.”

He was, of course, once a Bible salesman.

Jack Lessenberry

Tags: Evolution

– by Jerusalem Demsas

Many individuals wrote in and complained about the new law which would have given more power to builders, CAI, CCMC, etc. If you read the bill below, you will see it has major flaws in it.

I wrote and asked the legislature to deny this bill. It would not stop builders from making the same decisions and even less appropriate decisions with regard to lots, etc. Secondly, this has little to do with the military writing a letter and asking to not approve housing near air bases. Finally, the bill would open up more builds to more abuse by builders and builder owned HOAs. Read the bill (below).

By me, lot sizing is determined at the municipal level. Usually, the builder picks the smallest size lots they can to maximize the

Starting April 1, fast-food workers in California will be paid at least $20 an hour, thanks to legislation passed last fall that raised the industry-wide minimum wage. Why? “the difference between the prices consumers pay and the cost of production—have increased sharply over the past decade of growth for the industry.” Roosevelt Institute

Open Thread March 24 2024 Shorter Work Week – Is It All It Promises to Be? – Angry Bear

By David Zetland

The one-handed economist

Schools tend to go to one extreme or another when it comes to grades: they are either confidential or posted openly.

The reasons for confidential tend to involve self esteem, privacy, peer pressure and bullying. The idea is that students will be mean to each other if they know the grades of others.

This idea is a bit flawed — students can be mean in many ways, grades are feedback on work rather than evaluations of personal character, etc. — but you can see its parallel in discussions of pay at work.

The alternative of open grades is popular with those who want to show the product of potential, habits and behaviour — and how sometimes inputs do not lead to outputs. Sure, So-and-so (the model

Gee, whata surprise. Did this even make sense in the beginning? NBC empties the trash can before it starts to smell.

Robert Reich:

Ronna McDaniel’s tenure at NBC lasted four days. It ended last night, after network anchors and reporters blasted NBC’s decision to hire her last Friday. They argued that hiring her gave a green light for election deniers to spread lies as paid contributors. The New York Times said the episode underscored the challenge to news organizations “of fairly representing … pro-Trump viewpoints in their coverage.”

But can there be any “fair” representation of pro-Trump Republican viewpoints when those viewpoints center on a big lie about the 2020 election? More broadly, can a party that baselessly denies the outcome of an

There are issues with Medicare which are easily fixed.

Maggie Mahar was writing on healthcare at Angry Bear. I did the editing. I picked up on the issues with her on healthcare and have portrayed writers such as Merrill, Kip Sullivan, Charles Gaba, Steve Early, Susan Gordon, Andrew Sprung, etc.

There are issues with healthcare such as cost. Then there are make believe issues such as Medicare being in trouble. The same is true of Social Security. A few tweaks here and there and the problems go away for 75 years.

Read on with Merrill Gooz.

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Calls for radical transformation of the program ignore the trust fund’s history, and how much it rapidly responds to policy and the economic changes.

Fellow healthcare writer Merrill Goozner

Pretty much a rewrite to provide simpler reading and a better understanding for readers. My rewrite did not make it much shorter. It is taken from a recent 2025 Health Affairs article. The main thrust of this article being commercial Medicare Advantage insurance companies taking advantage of government payments for healthcare to Medicare patients. The other part being CMS doing more to resolve the issues. MA Coding for patients is set the year before the care is given.

Ask questions and I will attempt to answer.

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January 31, 2024, has the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) releasing the Calendar Year (CY) 2025 Advance Notice for Methodological Changes for Medicare Advantage, Capitation Rates, and Payment Policies (the

History and some excellent up-to-date reporting by Prof. Heather cox Richardson I am sharing here as I subscribe to her Letters from an American. She explains the efforts of a few, a minority of political actors who are attempting to sway the opinions of Americans with their stilted dialogue promoting right-wing beliefs. It should be ignored. However it is . . .

– Prof. Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American

In the past few weeks, Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo has deepened our understanding of the right-wing attempt to impose Christian nationalism on the United States through support for Trump and the MAGA movement. On March 9, Kovensky explored the secret, men-only, right-wing society called the Society for American Civic

AB: I was searching for a clear, brief, and understandable explanation of how the pharma industry works in delivering pharmaceuticals to patients. This article is one of the better ones out there and has a good and reasonable explanation on how the system works with prices, rebates, etc. A quick email to Antonio and I was given permission to use their commentaries. First in a series. It is not terribly long and the words give meaning to the charts. After reading, you should have a basic understanding.

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A Rose by Any Other Name

Antonio Ciaccia@ 46brooklyn Research

It wasn’t all that long ago that those of us at 46brooklyn began referring to prescription drug rebates as “money from sick people.”

The reason we selected this

The DHHS report (Michigan) found age, gender and other factors contributed to differing PFAS blood levels

Kyle Davidson @ Michigan Advance

Angry Bear: Shortly before we left Michigan for other digs. the pollution of water ways due to PFAS was coming more to light where we lived in Livingston County as well as other parts of Michigan. There was an advisory not to eat the fish out of some lakes.

PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a family of chemicals used in firefighting foam, but also in everyday consumer products like pizza boxes, fast food wrappers, shoes, cosmetics, clothing and non-stick cookware such as Teflon. The chemicals are complex, uniquely able to repel water, oil and stains, but not easily broken down in the

The Atlantic, Alan Taylor

The United Nations is warning that famine in Gaza is “almost inevitable.” Palestinians living in Gaza are struggling with extreme shortages of food, clean water, and medicine. Several countries, including Jordan, France, Egypt, the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, and now Germany, are coordinating airdrops of humanitarian aid to help alleviate the crisis, and the U.S. military is working to a build a temporary port on Gaza’s coastline to bring in additional aid. Critics have pointed out that airdrops and a temporary pier are insufficient, dangerous, and haphazard operations compared with ensuring a steady and reliable supply of aid delivered by trucks, which might be achieved by a cease-fire agreement. Gathered below are