Julie Hollar at FAIR notes that CNN approached its recent Democratic Presidential debates in a matter "more befitting a football game than an exercise in democracy," which "Shows the Need for Independent Debates." I'd have PBS do the debates, frankly, since they're more accountable to us than cable news networks, which are both the devil and the spawn of the devil. Which is worse, though: relying on far-right talking points for your questions, or turning every debate into a big drama? The answer: they're both wings of the same evil bird.
Marcia Angell at USA Today puts it better than anyone else I've heard: "Not only can we afford Medicare for All, we can’t afford anything else." The article makes other good points, but go ahead and use "not only can we afford Medicare for All, we can't afford anything else" as your meditation object. But since people are still going to ask how we'll pay for it, how about assessing employers a fee per employee? It'd have to be lower than what corporations are paying private insurers per employee now, but with Medicare's low overhead, that shouldn't be difficult. And no corporations won't "just fire people" in order to pay out less money -- though banksters are doing their best to change this, corporations still have to do things to make money, and doing things means having workers.
Steve Wamhoff at the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy informs us that a "wealth tax," such as that proposed by Sen. Warren (D-MA), would be much easier to implement than you think. You can almost dismiss Mr. Delaney's "concerns" merely because he raises them, but I find it quite interesting that the wealth tax's opponents won't tell you it's immoral or counterproductive but "unworkable," when valuing unsold assets actually isn't a complete mystery -- as you'd know if you've ever shopped around for a house. Also, too, don't believe the hype that a wealth tax would be "too complex," and certainly don't believe it from rich folks who seem to spend all their time making our tax code actually too complex.
Surprise, surprise, our EPA fines Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific $600,000 for violating the Clean Air Act at its Crosset, AK paper mill, and requires that the mill install $4.9 million in equipment that'll help it comply -- and then Georgia-Pacific partially closes said plant, firing over 500 workers. And now the Kochtopus will point to this occurrence and say SEE? TEH REGULASHUNZ KILLZ TEH JOBZ!!!!! Given that the Crosset plant is polluting so much that a) it's been all over the news and b) even this EPA fined them, you might well conclude that pollution kills jobs, not efforts to stop pollution.
Finally, Rowan Jacobson at Outside explains how alt-meat (i.e., meat from plant-based sources that has both the taste and texture of meat) has risen so quickly that it might be "The Beginning of the End of the Meat Industry." Perhaps not surprisingly, some big meat corporations are suddenly anxious to get Big Gummint help in the form of labeling laws! But others, like Tyson and Perdue, are making noises about going along, and anyway I'd prefer a world where your choices are either alt-meat or meat from small producers. (Warning, though: Impossible burgers use at least one genetically-modified ingredient, and they're apparently the class of alt-meat burgers.)
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