Day: May 24, 2019

Closing Thought–24May19

I live in Mississippi, the heart of the Diabetic Belt, and our insulin is anything but inexpensive…..$349 a month……the disease is about 11.3% of the population……

The Diabetes Belt?

So when I read of someone, a state, that is trying to make a difference for its residents I take notice……and Colorado is that state……

Diabetics in Colorado who use insulin to control their blood sugar levels won’t pay more than $100 per month for the drug starting in January thanks to a bill signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday.

“Today, we will declare that the days of insulin price gouging are over in Colorado,” Polis said in his office as he signed the bill, according to CBS Denver.

Insulin has been around for nearly a century, but the price that patients with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes pay for the drug has doubled since 2012, according to the Healthcare Cost Institute. The cost of insulin can creep up toward $1,000 for those whose health care coverage requires significant cost-sharing.

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/05/23/colorado-insulin-price-cap/
 
Makes me wonder why a state that is not on the top 10 list for diabetes would be the first to try and control the price of insulin……it should have been a top priority for a state like Mississippi or Alabama……but that would presume that the elected ones actually care about their voters….FLASH!  They Do Not!
The highest cases of diabetes…….
 
  1. Mississippi (11.3%)
  2. Alabama (11.1%)
  3. West Virginia (10.7%)
  4. Louisiana (10.3%)
  5. Tennessee (10.2%)
  6. Oklahoma (10.1%)
  7. Kentucky (10.1%)

You would think these 7 states would be the most interested in helping the sufferers of diabetes…..well you would be mistaken….the poorer the state the more diabetes and the less adequate programs.

So ends my Friday and I prepare for a good weekend and Memorial Day……hope all have a good time…be well, be safe……

Farmers Get Help

Yesterday Our Beloved Supreme Leader had a presser to announce his aid to the American farmer that may have trouble with the tariffs……and they all bow down……

With more than a dozen farmers at his side, President Trump announced a $16 billion aid package to compensate farmers for their losses in the trade war with China. “This support for farmers will be paid for by the billions of dollars the Treasury takes in” from China, he said. That’s not the way it works, the Washington Post points out: China does not pay the tariffs; importers do. Some importers then pass the cost on to American consumers. The administration had announced $12 billion in emergency measures in July. The relief announced Thursday will be distributed to farmers in three installments, with the first payment in July or August, the others in November and January 2020, if the tariffs are still in place.

Randy Spronk, a hog farmer and past president of the National Pork Producers Council who attended the White House meeting, said farmers realize the aid will not make up for their losses in a trade war. “But it makes enough of a difference to keep a lot of farmers so they can survive,” Spronk said, per the Post. The aid for farmers will ultimately come from taxpayers, said one expert, ABC reports. “Do the Chinese pay some of the tariff? Yes, probably in specific cases,” he said. “Do they pay most of it? No, the consumer pays most of it ultimately.” The American Farm Bureau and the National Farmers Union said that they appreciate the help, but that farmers would prefer to have a long-term trade deal with China.

This money was offered last Summer….and I agree with whoever said…”if tariffs hurt farmers then welfare is not the answer”……as always…I have written about the announcement a year ago……https://lobotero.com/2018/09/21/closing-thought-21sep18/

God knows our farmers need the help….but not everyone sees this politicial ploy as the answer to that problem……

President Donald Trump’s snap decision to send billions of dollars in new aid to farmers could be bad for the farm economy and the federal budget.

Many farmers are still deciding what to plant this spring and could be swayed toward crops that receive higher payouts from the aid package, such as soybeans. That would add to already record supplies and further depress prices that have been falling for five year

But the Trump administration’s decision to roll out the program now is drawing critics.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, told reporters Wednesday that the White House should have been more cautious about the timing of the announcement because farmers are still planting.

“[W]e want farmers to make decisions on how many acres of corn and soybeans to plant based on the market and not something the government’s doing,” he said.

“The timing couldn’t have been worse,” said Jonathan Coppess, an agricultural policy professor at the University of Illinois, and a former head of the USDA Farm Service Agency during the Obama administration.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/23/trump-farmer-bailout-trade-usda-1459840

Our farmers do not want the ‘welfare’ they prefer to earn their money….keep one thing in mind….agri-business also will get this ‘welfare’ and that who it is truly protecting.

Where are the deficit hawks?  They have plenty to say when food stamps are on the agenda….where are they now?

It’s Theatrics As Usual

Things are not going the way that the Imperial president wants it to go……he is stonewalling the Congress as often as possible……but a couple of his attempts did not go well for Trump……”the extremely stable genius”……

New York lawmakers gave final passage to legislation Wednesday that would allow President Donald Trump’s state tax returns to be released to congressional committees that have, so far, been barred from getting the president’s federal filings, the AP reports. The Democrat-led Senate and Assembly both approved the measures Wednesday, sending them to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. A spokesman has said the governor supports the principle behind the legislation but will review the bill carefully before deciding whether to sign it. The legislation doesn’t target Trump by name, but it would allow the leaders of the US House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, or the Joint Committee on Taxation to get access to any New York state tax returns filed by elected officials and top appointed officials. In related news:

  • A New York judge refused Wednesday to block congressional subpoenas seeking financial records from two banks that did business with President Donald Trump, making it clear it wasn’t a close call, per the AP. US District Judge Edgardo Ramos said in a ruling delivered from the bench that Trump and his company were “highly unlikely” to succeed in a lawsuit arguing that the subpoenas seeking records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One were unlawful and unconstitutional.
  • Five search warrant applications, from the early stages of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation in 2017, were made public in response to requests from media organizations. The documents shed further light on how former Trump attorney Michael Cohen capitalized financially on his closeness to Trump immediately after the 2016 election. See more at the AP.

To try and refocus the media Trump played a silly game……

On Wednesday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged that President Donald Trump was “engaged in a cover-up.” In response, Trump claimed to have been so wounded that he called off a meeting about, and any further discussion of, the $2 trillion infrastructure bill the two sides had been considering.

“Instead of walking in happily into a meeting, I walk in to look at people that have just said that I was doing a cover-up,” Trump said at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden. “I don’t do cover-ups.” He added, further, that he wouldn’t deal with Democrats until they “get these phony investigations over with.”

“You can go down the investigation track, and you can go down the investment track,” he said, but you can’t do both at the same time.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-rose-garden-infrastructure-pelosi.html

This was a silly immature game played by a juvenile president.  He spends his time playing the victim card and whining about the way he is treated…..

The Constitution made it impossible that the US would ever have a KING and Trump is trying to return the hard work the Founders did to secure our future as a republic from an “extremely stable geniuses”….

I have always hated political games and this president plays them with such passion it is damn near humorous……time for the games to end and the governing to begin….2 years of game and silliness is enough.

But TREASON?  Trump keeps calling the people investigating him as traitors guilty of treason……does this “Extremely stable genius” actually know what constitutes treason?

All coming from this ‘president’ is just silly and pathetic.

War With Iran?

No matter what we believe about the state of Iran…we are inching closer to a armed confrontation……something I do not believe will end well…..

But more on that later…..Sec. Pompeo is pulling out all stops to get a war….we have a hard on for al-Qaeda since 9/11 and he used AQ to justify a war with Iran…..

In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that “there is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaeda. Period. Full stop.”

If the connection was that al-Qaeda has been fighting against Iran, and vice versa, for decades he might have a point. That’s clearly not Pompeo’s intention, however, and other officials are noting that he’s wrong.

Pentagon and State Department officials say Pompeo’s comments were “way out of proportion,” and that there “is nothing in the intelligence to suggest” that Iran and al-Qaeda are working together in some grand anti-US alliance.

(antiwar.com)

So why is Pompeo lying? It’s because legally what he claims would have been very convenient. The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Forces (AUMF) authorizes war against groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, and Pompeo is among administration officials talking up war with Iran. Linking them to al-Qaeda, however non-credibly and preposterously, would be a way to allow Trump to circumvent Congress on authorization.

And then there is our “close” ally MbS….not to outdone he is pushing for a war with Iran……

Mohammed bin Salman has appalling judgment and a terrible track record, so it comes as no surprise that he thinks having the U.S. start a war with Iran is a good idea. Bogged down in a disastrous war of his own making in Yemen, he would have the U.S. set the entire region aflame with more reckless military intervention. The Trump administration should obviously ignore Saudi calls for war, but given the president’s history of doing Riyadh’s bidding there is no guarantee that a concerted push from regional clients won’t have the desired effect. Saudi support for attacking Iran is the latest example of their government’s destructive and destabilizing role in the region, and it is another reminder that the crown prince is reckless and incapable of learning any of the right lessons from his previous failures. With any luck, the anti-Iranian summit later this month will be as much of a flop as the Trump administration’s failed gathering in Warsaw.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-reckless-saudis-want-to-start-another-war/
 
If we go to war and we do win, whatever that looks like, there will be a need for another occupation…….if you need an example (hopefully you care more than that)….think Iraq there is NO better example.
 
It is a shame that we have NO clear objective here……we have the regime change bullshit from Bolton and Pompeo and the incoherence of Trump….one way at breakfast and by lunch it has changed and probably will again by breakfast tomorrow…..

To some extent, there is nothing new under the sun. Fabrication and folly are hardly unknown to US presidential policies on war and peace. Before President Donald Trump commits further to any new or expanding military operations against Iran, therefore, it would be prudent to look back at some of this country’s previous war policy manipulations and errors.

Even if it should first appear that a “tailored,” “limited,” or “narrow” American-led action against Iran would be gainful in geo-strategic terms (and also defensible in law), a second look would still be in order.

In any such complex matters, history deserves its pride of place. Where, precisely, have we gone wrong in the past? Why were we Americans so sorely mistaken in Vietnam and other places? Were we simply misled by poor presidential leadership? Even as a free people, have we just been incapable of selecting capable candidates for high public office?

And why?

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/war-iran-error-manipulation-and-president-donald-trumps-strategy-incoherence

This is all too familiar……maybe some are too young to remember the lies and deception by the government and the media in 2003….but I am not….and that is why I write!

Plus the media has worked well for the government narrative…..they have successfully sold the narrative of war with Iran to the people…..

While Americans are more concerned about Iran as a security threat to the United States now than they were last year, few would be in favour of a pre-emptive attack on the Iranian military. But if Iran attacked U.S. military forces first, four out of five believed the United States should respond militarily in a full or limited way, the May 17-20 poll showed.

Historically tense relations between Washington and Tehran worsened in May after U.S. President Donald Trump hardened his anti-Iran stance and restored all sanctions on Iranian oil exports following his decision a year ago to pull the United States out of a 2015 international nuclear accord with Tehran.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-iran-poll/half-of-american-adults-expect-war-with-iran-within-next-few-years-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUKKCN1SR27R

Goebbels would be proud of our MSM!

What about Iran threatens the “Homeland”?

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