January 25, 2016

TOM TOMORROW: Primary Phenomena 2016

DAILY KOS LINK: http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1473729

January 25, 2016

TOM TOMORROW: Primary Phenomena 2016

DAILY KOS LINK: http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1473729

January 20, 2016

'My Life Under Single-Payer Healthcare'

DKos diary:

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/18/1471257/-My-Life-Under-Single-Payer-Healthcare

My Life Under Single-Payer Healthcare

Jan 18, 2016 3:39am EST by sbklaw2005

Bernie Sanders released his plan for single-payer health care in America. As an ex-pat/dual citizen living under a single-payer health care system myself, I thought it would be a good idea to share with the community what life is like under single-payer health care from my perspective as a man with a family, a tax-paying teacher, and a football player (don’t laugh).

As you know from my previous posts, I live in Israel. (Side note: this post has nothing to do with the ongoing regional conflict, just the medical system here, which is available to all citizens). We came here 21 months ago when my wife received a post-doctoral fellowship. I gave up my career as a lawyer (and my big house in suburban Atlanta, and my SUV) to move across the world to aid my wife’s career.

Here’s basically the system in Israel:

- Healthcare is predominantly paid for through the government.
Everyone receives a certain, basic “basket” of services based on their age (children get free basic dental care, people over 90 years old get free home health aids, etc.).

- Everyone pays into the system, or has someone pay for them, based on income.

- The basic payment structure is similar to what Sen. Sanders proposes for the US. Workers pay between 3% and 9% of their salary (progressively based on income) and employers pay a similar matching percentage. We do not have to negotiate for health insurance when applying for a job.

- There are four quasi-private health care providers.

- They open clinics and have affiliate doctors and hospitals throughout the country. A doctor can work for a company’s clinic, or work privately and decide whether or not to accept the customers of each of the four companies.
All four companies provide the same basic standard of care for similar prices.

- What about competition? Each company wants as many subscribers as possible. So they have to get the best doctors to provide the best care, the best equipment and offices, and availability in the most communities.

- The four companies have options for supplemental insurance above and beyond the basic basket. This includes, dental, long term care, discounted hospital stays, discounts on private (non-plan) doctors, alternative medicine, and fertility services.

- There is private insurance available, also above and beyond the basic basket.

But how does this work in real life?

What We Pay

REST AT LINK; GO READ IT

January 19, 2016

Terrorism Act Incompatible with Human Rights, UK Court Rules in Miranda Case (Victory for Greenwald)

Source: Guardian

Terrorism Act incompatible with human rights, court rules in David Miranda case

Appeal court says detention of Miranda was lawful but clause under which he was held is incompatible with European human rights convention

Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent
@owenbowcott
Tuesday 19 January 2016 06.41 EST

A key clause in the Terrorism Act 2000 is incompatible with the European convention on human rights, the master of the rolls, Lord Dyson, has declared as part of a court of appeal judgment.

His judgment came in the case of a man detained at Heathrow airport for carrying files related to information obtained by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Dyson’s decision will force government ministers to re-examine the act, which has now been found to be inconsistent with European law.

Dyson said that the powers contained in schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act (2000) were flawed. Schedule 7 of the Act allows travellers to be questioned in order to find out whether they appear to be terrorists. They have no right to remain silent or receive legal advice, and they may be detained for up to nine hours.


Terrorism Act incompatible with human rights, court rules in David Miranda case

“The stop power, if used in respect of journalistic information or material is incompatible with article 10 [freedom of expression] of the (European convention on human rights) because it is not ‘prescribed by law’,” the master of the rolls said.

Welcoming the decision, Kate Goold, the solicitor representing the detained man, David Miranda, said: “The notion of a journalist becoming an accidental terrorist has been wholeheartedly rejected.

MORE

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=9b2ccf6e-c47b-4ec7-9a8a-ddd2a1d2601f&c=de527400-9cfe-11e5-b40c-d4ae526edd6c&ch=de5707e0-9cfe-11e5-b40c-d4ae526edd6c

Miranda appeal court rules anti terrorism laws breach fundamental rights and have been misinterpreted by the police and Secretary of State

Bindmans Press Office

In a landmark ruling, the Court of Appeal today allowed David Miranda's appeal against the use of controversial police powers to stop, detain, question and search him at Heathrow Airport in August 2013. At the time he had been stopped Miranda was assisting the work of his partner, the award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was publishing articles about Edward Snowden's mass surveillance revelations.

Led by its most senior judge, Lord Dyson MR, the court found that the powers, contained in Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, are flawed. They breach fundamental rights, because they "do not afford effective protection" for the basic rights of journalists, and those working with them, that are protected in other areas of British law, including other anti terrorism legislation (paragraph 113). He added "if journalists and their sources can have no expectation of confidentiality, they may decide against providing information on sensitive matters of public interest." The court went on to hold that the breach would need to be remedied by Parliament by introducing judicial oversight when such powers are used at ports.

The decision is also important because for the first time the Court of Appeal rejected the very broad definition of 'terrorism' put forward by lawyers for the police and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State had argued that the 2000 Act definition of terrorism includes those involved in lawful political activity - such as journalists or protestors - if they accidentally and inadvertently do something that puts lives at risk. In overruling the Divisional Court, the Court of Appeal said that the Secretary of State was wrong and terrorism required some intention to cause a serious threat to public safety, such as endangering life. Dyson MR commented: "if Parliament had intended to provide that a person commits an act of terrorism where he unwittingly or accidentally does something which in fact endangers another person's life, I would have expected that, in view of the serious consequences of classifying a person as a terrorist, it would have spelt this out clearly" (paragraph 54).

Although it allowed David Miranda's appeal, the Court of Appeal did not accept his argument that the police had acted for a purpose that fell outside Schedule 7. It said that Schedule 7 powers were so unusually broad that they could be exercised for reasons that were in the mind of one of the officers in the command chain, even though that officer did not actually perform the stop, had no reasonable basis for those reasons, and had not communicated those reasons to any other officers who did carry out the stop. Given this, Dyson MR concluded "I would hold that the exercise of the Schedule 7 stop power in relation to Mr Miranda on 18 August 2013 was lawful" (para 119).

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/terrorism-act-incompatible-with-human-rights-court-rules-in-david-miranda-case

January 18, 2016

TOM TOMORROW: Crisis Management in Flint (Invisible Hand-of-Free-Market Man!)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/18/1470965/-Cartoon-Crisis-management

January 15, 2016

Breaking: Portuguese court decides to extradite ex-CIA operative to Italy in rendition case

Source: Associated Press

@AP: BREAKING: Portuguese court decides to extradite ex-CIA operative to Italy in rendition case.

Portuguese court rules to extradite ex-CIA agent to Italy

By: The Associated Press

Posted: 5:37 AM, Jan 15, 2016

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — A Portuguese court has ruled that a former CIA operative convicted of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric as part of an extraordinary renditions program should be turned over to Italy to serve her six-year sentence there, a court official said Friday.

The official told The Associated Press the decision to extradite Sabrina De Sousa was handed down on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with court rules.

De Sousa's Portuguese lawyer, Manuel Magalhaes e Silva, told the AP in an email he was officially informed of the decision Friday and intends to lodge an appeal at the Supreme Court. He said that if that fails, he will go to the Constitutional Court.

De Sousa was among 26 Americans convicted in absentia for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan. She has since requested a pardon from Italy.

She was arrested at Lisbon Airport in October on a European warrant. Authorities seized her passport while awaiting the court decision on her extradition.

De Sousa, who was working in Italy under diplomatic cover, faces prison for her role in the 2003 kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a terror suspect who was under surveillance by Italian law enforcement at the time. The case, which also implicated Italy's secret services, has proven embarrassing to successive Italian governments.

Read more: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/portuguese-court-rules-to-extradite-ex-cia-agent-to-italy

January 14, 2016

Politifact: Chelsea Clinton Statements in Sanders Health Care Plan 'Mostly False'

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/14/chelsea-clinton/chelsea-clinton-mischaracterizes-bernie-sanders-he/


Chelsea Clinton mischaracterizes Bernie Sanders' health care plan

By Lauren Carroll on Thursday, January 14th, 2016 at 2:59 p.m.

Hitting the campaign trail on her mother’s behalf, Chelsea Clinton attacked Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ universal health care plan.

"Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance," Clinton said in New Hampshire Jan. 12. "I don't want to empower Republican governors to take away Medicaid, to take away health insurance for low-income and middle-income working Americans. And I think very much that's what Sen. Sanders' plan would do."

The Sanders campaign and his supporters swiftly called Clinton’s statements inaccurate, so we decided to look into them ourselves — in particular, her claim that Sanders’ plan would "empower" governors "to take away health insurance for low-income and middle-income working Americans."

Given that Sanders’ proposed plan specifically calls health insurance an entitlement for all, we found that this is a mischaracterization at best.

Sanders hasn’t released a health care proposal as a presidential candidate, but his campaign has said a bill he introduced in the Senate in 2013 would serve as the model. Sanders has called the plan "Medicare for all," referring to the the health safety net that covers those over 65.

Clinton has a point that enacting the law would disrupt health insurance as we know it, said Gerald Friedman, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who has analyzed similar proposals.

MORE

January 14, 2016

Iowa Poll: Clinton Slides, Leads Sanders by 2 Points

Source: Des Moines Register

6 a.m. CST January 14, 2016

DES MOINES REGISTER AND TRIBUNE COMPANY
Hillary Clinton has lost most of her lead over Bernie Sanders in the race to win Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses, a new Iowa Poll shows.

Clinton, who has been the favorite all along, now leads Sanders by just 2 percentage points in The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll. That’s down from 9 percentage points a month ago.

Clinton is now the top choice of 42 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers, compared with Sanders’ 40 percent, the poll finds. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

“It shows Bernie is around to stay for sure. It’s not a fly-by-night thing,” said Grant Woodard, a Des Moines lawyer who has worked for several state and national Democratic campaigns. “It really shows we’re going to have a pretty crazy last few weeks here.”

The tightening race is not because of a surge in support for Sanders, the poll indicates. His support has risen just 1 percentage point in the past month. But Clinton has seen her support slide from 48 percent to 42 percent. The big shift has been in the number of likely Democratic caucusgoers who say they are undecided or who plan to stand up for “uncommitted.” Fourteen percent now say that, up from 8 percent a month ago.

Read more: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/news/

January 11, 2016

TOM TOMORROW: The Junior Militiaman Playset!

DAILY KIS LINK: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/11/1467475/-Cartoon-The-Junior-Militiaman-Playset

January 11, 2016

David Bowie 'Heroes' (Full Version)

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be Heroes, just for one day

And you, you can be mean
And I, I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact
Yes we're lovers, and that is that

Though nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time,
just for one day
We can be Heroes, for ever and ever
What d'you say?

I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing,
nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes,
just for one day

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be Heroes, just for one day
We can be us, just for one day

I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing, by the wall (by the wall)
And the guns shot above our heads
(over our heads)
And we kissed,
as though nothing could fall
(nothing could fall)
And the shame was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we could be Heroes,
just for one day

We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
Just for one day
We can be Heroes

We're nothing, and nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying,
then you better not stay
But we could be safer,
just for one day

Oh-oh-oh-ohh, oh-oh-oh-ohh,
just for one day