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Trump Auctions Himself Off to Wall Street

by JordanSeely Posted on July 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump has told prospective donors that, if elected president, he plans to nominate former Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin for U.S. Treasury Secretary.

That’s according to Anthony Scaramucci, a high-profile hedge fund manager and Trump fundraiser….Earlier this year, the 53-year-old Mnuchin joined Donald Trump’s campaign as national finance chairman.

Trump’s message to Wall Street is: The guy calling you for donations is going to be Secretary of the Treasury in a few months. So no worries: treat him right and he’ll treat you right.

This comes via Jordan Weissmann, who has about the right take on things: “Promising to pick a Wall Street banker whom you have charged with the task of raising money for your campaign from other Wall Street bankers to head the Treasury Department may be the single most straightforward way a presidential candidate could auction himself off to the financial services sector.” Trump is quite the man of the people, no?

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Trump Auctions Himself Off to Wall Street

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Republican platform declares coal is clean

by EstelaWJWvzqh Posted on July 12, 2016

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Republican platform declares coal is clean

By on Jul 11, 2016Share

The Republican platform committee met in Cleveland the week before the Republican National Convention to hammer out the party’s policies in a Trump era. Not to be outdone by Democrats, who approved the party’s strongest platform language yet on climate change this weekend, Republicans have gone as far as possible in the other direction — by endorsing coal as clean.

After a unanimous vote on Monday, the RNC’s draft platform officially declares coal “an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource.”

David Barton, a delegate from Texas, proposed the single-word edit to the RNC’s already-glowing list of adjectives on coal in its platform draft. “I would insert the adjective ‘clean’ along with coal, particularly because the technology we have now,” was Barton’s reasoning. (You can watch a clip of the vote on C-SPAN).

For years the coal industry — and at one point, even President Obama — promoted the idea of “clean coal,” that expensive and imperfect carbon-capture-and-storage technology could someday make coal less terrible. But there’s no way it is clean.

The RNC language just happens to reflect the same talking points favored by the lobby group, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), which on its website calls coal “an affordable, abundant and increasingly clean domestic energy resource that is vital to providing reliable low-cost electricity.”

The RNC copied most of that language correctly, give or take a few words.

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Republican platform declares coal is clean

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Is Zero Waste Just for the Young and Affluent?

by RosettaMaas2622 Posted on July 11, 2016

Many online commenters complain about the fact that Zero Waste blogs tend to be run by primarily young, affluent females who have the time and money to run around town, visiting numerous stores in order to source their favorite local, organic ingredients in fancy glass jars and stainless containers, before heading home to DIY everything from bread and yogurt to toothpaste and body wash. (I realize I, too, am guilty of giving this impression.)

For many, Zero Waste has become synonymous with privilege and wealth because there is so little online discussion about how people who donotfit those categories can possibly attain Zero Waste standards. This is hardly fair.

Just because someone has very little money or lives with disabilities doesnt mean they dont care about the environment, nor have the willpower and desire to implement waste reduction in their personal lives. More bloggers should be asking, “How does Zero Waste benefit people with disabilities and low incomes? Is it even realistic for those with limited physical access and tight budgets?”

Ariana Schwarz addresses this topic in an excellent article called Is Zero Waste Unfair to People with Low Incomes or Disabilities? Schwarz believes that Zero Waste is not ableist or discriminatory toward the poor. In fact, it provides great opportunities to improve quality of life.

Take packaging, for example.So often we think of single-used packaging as convenient, and yetlesspackaging is typically more accessible. Imagine opening plastic blister packs, Tetrapaks, and Tupperware or other food storage containers, with their one-handed peel motion; twisting up deodorant tubes and toothpaste lids; and opening rigid plastic packaging (such as the type toothbrushes come in) or Ziplocs while suffering from arthritis or ALS. Compare that to cotton mesh drawstring bags, wide-mouth Mason jars, and flip- or swing-top glass bottles, where access is easier overall.

In terms of cost, Zero Waste can save precious money.Investing in reusables that require an initial investment can save significant amounts of money down the road, i.e. cloth diapers, a menstrual cup, safety razors, etc. Buying in bulk quantities reduces cost and the number of shopping trips. Many bulk stores have low-positioned bins with lids that are easier to open and access from a wheelchair than reaching the tops of supermarket shelves.

Having tight budgets encourages people to grow their own food in abandoned or under-utilized spaces to save packaging and cost. There are many farmers markets in the U.S. that accept SNAP cards and food stamps; in Georgia, aspecial programeven doubles SNAP at markets.

Health can improve through implementation of Zero Waste practices. One commenter on Schwarzs blog wrote:

Zero waste has been a savior in cost and mental peace of mind. My apartment building is falling apart and the carpet full of allergens, but cleaning with vinegar, baking soda, and soap have gone a long way for my health and wallet (cloth towels instead of paper help too). Our allergies are much improved. We’re hoping to get a bidet soon; there’s one on Amazon for barely more than a jumbo pack of toilet paper. Same for being mostly vegan life is much improved and costs are way down.

Keep in mind that embracing small challenges, such as saying no to single-use plastic containers, utensils, and grocery bags, sends a powerful message to whomever has offered it to you, regardless of physical or financial challenges, and its important not to underestimate that power.

Zero Waste practices can benefit everyone, but responsibility does lie with those who do not struggle with barriers to accessibility to push this lifestyle more into the mainstream and make it even easier for everyone to participate.

Schwarz writes: Could you volunteer to collect food that would otherwise go to waste and redistribute them to the needy? Petition local shops for more accessible bulk bins? Or assist handicapped or elderly persons in your community with the grocery shopping?

What are your experiences with Zero Waste living? Do you live with a disability or on a low income that makes it difficult to implement environmental practices? Please share any thoughts in the comments below.

Written by Katherine Martinko. Reposted with permission from TreeHugger.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Is Zero Waste Just for the Young and Affluent?

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Universal Health Care Is Probably No More Popular Now Than It’s Ever Been

by LucilleMickle Posted on May 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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Harold Pollack says that Bernie Sanders has started a political revolution:

Not enough of one to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but enough to put the dream of single-payer health care back on the national political agenda in a way few would have expected five years ago….Just this week, Gallup released a poll indicating that “58% of U.S. adults favor the idea of replacing the Affordable Care Act with a federally funded healthcare system that provides insurance for all Americans.” Politico Magazine reports that Sanders’s health plan “is the most popular of the three remaining candidates.”

I’d be thrilled about this if it were true, but I have my doubts. The problem is that Americans have a long history of supporting things in the abstract but not so much when they become concrete partisan proposals. Take Obamacare. In 2013, a CNBC poll showed 37 percent unfavorability toward the “Affordable Care Act,” but 46 percent toward “Obamacare.” In 2014, a Morning Consult poll showed 71 percent support for offering Medicaid to all adults under the poverty line, but only 62 percent support for expanding Medicaid “as encouraged under the Affordable Care Act.” A Marist poll in Kentucky showed 57 percent disapproval of Obamacare but only 22 percent disapproval of kynect—Kentucky’s version of Obamacare. And of course, we have years of polling showing that lots of people like nearly all the individual elements of Obamacare, but then turn around and insist that they hate Obamacare itself.

As for universal health care, a Harris poll last September found 63 percent approval. A Kaiser poll in December found 58 percent support for Medicare-for-all. Gallup polls going back 15 years show higher support for government guarantees of health care during the Bush years than they do now.

So color me skeptical that Bernie Sanders has really had much effect on the health care debate. Gallup’s poll last week didn’t so much as breathe the word “taxes,” and if it did, support for the universal health care option would sink like a stone. Americans have long had mixed feeling about universal health care, and those feelings are deeply tied up in partisan attitudes and willingness to pay. Unfortunately, Sanders doesn’t seem to have moved the needle on this at all.

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Universal Health Care Is Probably No More Popular Now Than It’s Ever Been

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How Bernie Learned to Love the Polls

by TrudyQ67ugzq Posted on April 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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Bernie Sanders’ campaign used to dismiss poll numbers. The insurgent candidate has long trailed Hillary Clinton in national surveys, and his numbers have tended to only rise state by state as the campaign turns to each new contest.

But now that he’s gained more national attention, Sanders has started to sound downright Trumpian and in love of touting the latest stats on his campaign. While stumping at a high school gym in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on Friday afternoon, Sanders kicked off his normal speech by adding a bit of bragging about a host of favorable numbers.

“When we began this campaign, we were 3 percent in the polls. Three percent. We were about 60, 65 points behind Secretary Clinton. I think it’s fair to say we made up some ground in the interval. A national poll had us a point ahead last week.”

A lonely poll showing a statistically insignificant lead isn’t usually great news for a campaign. And in fact, polling averages suggest Sanders trails Clinton by about 9 percent in surveys of Democrats across the country. But that outlier, from a poll conducted by Bloomberg Politics, was enough to draw loud applause from the Sanders fans packed high into the gym’s rafters.

No 2016 candidate has boasted about polls quite as much as Donald Trump, who has deployed positive numbers to underscore his booming appeal. But Sanders is now using Trump as his foil to brag about his own numbers, arguing that he’d be a better bet for Democrats than Clinton in a general election contest against the Republican front-runner. “What more and more people, I think, are understanding is that our campaign would be by far the strongest campaign against Donald Trump,” Sanders boasted. “This is true.”

Sanders pointed to a CNN poll from last month that showed him beating Trump by 20 percent nationally: “And that’s before he really began to expose what a nutcase he really is.” While Sanders’ citation of the single Bloomberg pool is a thin reed to argue he’s favored by more Democratic voters, the numbers are so far clearly on his side in hypothetical general election matchups with Trump. According to the averages compiled by RealClearPolitics, Clinton would beat Trump by 10 percent, while Sanders leads The Donald by a heftier 15 points.

Sanders closed off the poll-focused section of his Friday speech by turning his attention to Wisconsin. “It’s not only national polls which have us defeating Mr. Trump by a large number,” Sanders said. “A recent Marquette University poll, right here in Wisconsin, had Secretary Clinton beating Trump by 10 points. That’s not bad. We were beating him here in Wisconsin by 19 points.”

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How Bernie Learned to Love the Polls

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Yet Another Look at BernieCare

by SteviePillinger Posted on February 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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I hope you’ll pardon a bit of real-time navel-gazing. It won’t take long. A couple of weeks ago Bernie Sanders released an outline of his single-payer health plan, and I pronounced it “pretty good.” A week later, Emory’s Kenneth Thorpe took a detailed look at Sanders’ plan and basically concluded that it was fantasy. Why the huge difference between us?

It has little to do with the details of the Sanders plan. We’re both looking primarily at the financing. Here was my reasoning:

Total health care outlays in the United States come to about $3 trillion.
The federal government already spends $1 trillion.
Sanders would spend $1.4 trillion more. That comes to $2.4 trillion, which means Sanders is figuring his plan will save about $600 billion, or 20 percent of total outlays.
I doubt that. I’ll buy the idea that a single-payer plan can cut costs, but not that much. I might find $1.7 or $1.8 trillion in extra revenue credible, which means that Sanders is probably lowballing by $300 billion or so—which, by the standards of most campaign promises, is actually not that bad. I’d be delighted if a single Republican were that honest about the revenue effects of whatever tax plan they’re hawking at the moment.

But Thorpe says Sanders is off by a whopping $1.1 trillion. Yikes! Where does that come from? There are several places where Thorpe suggests the Sanders plan will cost more than Sanders thinks, but the main difference is shown in the table on the right. Thorpe, it turns out, thinks the Sanders plan would cost an additional $1.9 trillion in the first year. So he and I are roughly on the same page.

But I stopped there. I basically assumed that both costs and revenues would increase each year at about the same rate, and that was that. Thorpe, however, figures costs will increase substantially each year but tax revenues will increase hardly at all. So that means an increasing gap between revenue and spending, which averages out to $1.1 trillion over ten years.

Other details aside, then, this is the big difference. If Sanders’ new taxes fall further and further behind each year as health care costs rise, then he’s got a big funding gap that he would have to make up with higher tax rates. But if he can keep cost growth down to about the same level as his tax revenue growth, his plan is in decent shape.

So which is it? Beats me. This is the kind of thing where the devil really is in the details, and even a small difference in assumptions can add up to a lot over ten years. Still, I was curious to see why Thorpe and I seemed to diverge so strongly, and this is it. Take it for what it’s worth.

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Yet Another Look at BernieCare

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Clinton Campaign Ramps Up Attacks on Sanders’ Health Care Plan

by MargareHutchens Posted on January 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton’s attack on Bernie Sanders over health care policy isn’t done yet. On Wednesday afternoon, her campaign convened a press call to slam her Democratic primary opponent for his single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care plan.

Clinton campaign officials alleged that Sanders is not releasing the details of how he’d pay for the plan because he wants to hide tax increases that would hit the middle class. Earlier on Wednesday, Sanders’ campaign had released a comprehensive list of proposals to pay for his various campaign schemes—except for health care. As recently as 2013, Sanders had regularly introduced bills for single-payer health plans that include details on the tax increases that he would include to pay for the system, including an across-the-board 2.2 percent income tax hike. Since launching his presidential campaign, he’s continually promised to introduce a new Medicare-for-all proposal, but has yet to come out with the details.

Speaking on behalf of the Clinton campaign, senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan and national press secretary Brian Fallon ripped into Sanders for the delay, claiming that it did a disservice to Democratic voters, with the Iowa caucuses just three weeks away. “It’s not becoming, and it’s not worthy of the caucus-goers in Iowa,” Fallon said.

The pair of Clinton aides weren’t subtle in suggesting that the reason Sanders has yet to unveil a proposal is because he doesn’t want to talk about the tax increases needed to fund it. “One can only draw the conclusion that the Sanders campaign does not want to outline what is going to amount to a massive across-the-board tax hike on working families,” Sullivan said. (The Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Clinton has regularly attacked both Sanders and her other Democratic opponent, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, for being willing to raise taxes on people she terms middle class—a broad definition that reaches nearly to the top tier of incomes.

Although they objected to the lack of detail, the Clinton campaign staffers evidently had enough details to launch a harsh critique of Sanders’ concept of universal health care. “Clinton believes, given the problems of income inequality, the last thing that we should be doing is raising taxes on the middle class,” Sullivan said. “She has said many times that we need to give middle-class families a raise, not a tax increase.”

What about the contention from Sanders that any extra costs from taxes would be offset with boosts in disposable income once people no longer need to pay for insurance? “From our perspective, it is far from clear that everyone would in fact save money from Sen. Sanders’ plan,” Sullivan said. “In fact, we believe that many middle-class and working families would be worse off under this plan.”

The Clinton campaign has dug in deep against Sanders on health care this week. Clinton attacked her opponent’s plan as a “risky deal” during an Iowa event on Monday, and her daughter Chelsea Clinton, acting as a campaign surrogate, said on Tuesday that it’d “strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance.” Although single-payer health care might be a political longshot after the drawn-out fight over the more moderate Obamacare, attacking the merits of single-payer in a Democratic primary is a strange strategic choice for the Clinton campaign. A poll from a progressive group last year found that about 80 percent of Democrats support single-payer.

But Clinton seems intent on doubling down on the sort of arguments you typically hear from Republicans, claiming that her opponent is too focused on taking money away from voters for big government programs. “When Hillary Clinton says that, as president, her number one challenge would be to seek to get incomes rising again,” Fallon said, “a proof point of that is that she does not want to start off on day one by slapping a tax increase that would directly take money out of the pockets of those very same households whose take-home pay we’re seeking to increase. So it’s a very risky proposition, altogether, for Sen. Sanders to be suggesting that he wants to address those stagnant wages as well, but all he can commit to, what he is promising off the bat, is tax increases that would adversely impact the take-home pay for those very same households.”

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Clinton Campaign Ramps Up Attacks on Sanders’ Health Care Plan

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Would You Like Fewer Fries With That?

by RigoberZWR Posted on November 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Aaron Carroll writes today that calorie labeling in restaurants doesn’t seem to have any effect. I skimmed through his review of the evidence in order to get to the part of the story where he tells us what does have an effect, but I was disappointed. Not surprised, though. Hardly anything works. Here’s his single paragraph about alternatives:

Previous work in Health Affairs showed that training servers to ask if customers might like to downsize three starchy sides induced up to a third of customers to order and eat 200 fewer calories per meal. More recent work in the journal showed that changing the “prevalence, prominence and default nature of healthy options” on children’s menus led to sustained changes in what people ordered.

I don’t know about children’s menus, but that first suggestion rings a bell. One of my favorite restaurants offers two sides with dinner entrees. I always order the same thing, and all I want is a single side order of fries. This is all but impossible to get. If I tell my server I want just one order of fries and nothing else, I’m told brightly that it’s no trouble to just double up the fries. If I say I don’t want two orders of fries, the cook gives them to me anyway. I think they want to fill up the plate and make sure I don’t feel ripped off.

Suggesting that we downsize calorie-laden sides might be a good idea. But in my experience, the first step is for restaurants to allow sides to be downsized if the customer asks. Baby steps.

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Would You Like Fewer Fries With That?

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Why Does Donald Trump Have Nothing Against Germany?

by ValentiCatalano Posted on September 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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Which of these countries is not like the others?

  1. China
  2. Germany
  3. Japan
  4. Mexico

Answer: When Donald Trump goes on a tear about foreign countries that are stealing our jobs thanks to their “cunning” and “ruthless” leaders, he always talks about our horrible trade deficit. China: $300+ billion. Japan: $60+ billion. Mexico: $50+ billion.

Who doesn’t he mention? Germany, which is in second place at $80+ billion. Why is that? What is it that makes Germany not like those other countries?

And as long as we’re on the subject of Trump, I caught a bit of his speech in Dallas today and heard him bragging about the fact that every network was covering him. He explained it this way: “It’s a very simple formula in entertainment and television. If you get good ratings—and these aren’t good, these are monster—then you’re going to be on all the time even if you have nothing to say.” Credit where it’s due: Trump may not actually be much of a builder, but he sure does know his TV. And himself, apparently.

Also worth noting: Trump got plenty of cheers for all his usual shoutouts, but by far the biggest cheer came when he promised to toss out every illegal immigrant within his first 18 months. “We have to stop illegal immigration,” he said. “We have to do it.” That set the arena rocking for nearly a full minute, ending in a fervid chant of “USA! USA! USA!” Judging by this, immigration is still the single biggest key to his appeal.

Finally, on a more amusing note, Trump complained that because all his events are televised, he can’t just give the same speech over and over like other politicians. I wonder if he actually believes this? I haven’t heard anything new from Trump in months. Every speech he gives relies on all the same snippets. He changes the order depending on his mood, but it’s always the same stuff. He may be new to politics, but the idea of a standard stump speech is something he seems to have in his blood.

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Why Does Donald Trump Have Nothing Against Germany?

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Watch Jon Stewart Explain Science To the Climate Deniers In Congress

by SybilSpillman Posted on September 24, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in Slate and is republished here as part of our Climate Desk collaboration.

If you ever catch me in a moment of weakness about the weapons-grade dumbosity of global warming denial on the Republican side of the US House of Representatives, it might look a lot like what Jon Stewart did on The Daily Show on the Sept. 22, 2014, show:

It’s become a cliché that majority members of the House Science Committee know nothing at all about actual science (or they do, but choose to ignore it for ideological reasons)—but here on display for all to see is just how ridiculous the reality of it is. What you just saw are long, long debunked denial points being brought up like they are revealed wisdom, along with “gotcha”-style barbs that are transparently, bone-headedly wrong.

And isn’t presidential science adviser John Holdren a freaking ninja in those clips? He easily and smoothly shuts down the salvos of scientific ignorance tossed out by the committee members. For his part, I’m very glad Stewart pointed out the glaring hypocrisy of people like Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Indiana, who accuses climatologists of faking the science for money, when Bucshon himself is funded quite well by fossil fuel interests.

Holy oiliness. It’s loathsome enough that Bucshon would choose to simply ignore the agreement of the vast majority of climatologists who know the Earth is warming and that it’s our fault … but to do so while happily taking the Koch brothers’ money is really galling.

If I seem upset about this, it’s because I am. It’s like we’re in some sort of alternate reality, a Hollywood spoof of what government is like. But it’s real, and these buffoons are holding up any real chance we have of making any progress about one of the (if not the single) largest problem we as a species face.

There’s an election coming up, folks. Vote. I know there’s essentially no chance that the GOP won’t lose the majority in the House, but it’s important to get out there and vote, and to get others to as well. If we don’t, then we’re just handing over our future to these people who have their minds firmly closed to reality.

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Watch Jon Stewart Explain Science To the Climate Deniers In Congress

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