[[link removed]]

TIDBITS – DEC.12 – READER COMMENTS: TRUMP PLAN – END
CITIZENSHIP, MASS DEPORTATIONS; IT WAS CLOSE ELECTION; HEALTH AND
DEATH AS PROFIT INDUSTRY – $1.39 TRILLION IN PROFITS; SYRIA – A
CAUTION; NEW RESOURCE – ELECTIONS AND HEALTH POLICY; TAKE ACTION;  
[[link removed]]


 

December 12, 2024
xxxxxx
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Reader Comments: Trump Plan - End Citizenship, Mass Deportations;
It Was Close Election; Health and Death as Profit Industry - $1.39
Trillion in Profits; Syria - A Caution; New Resource - Elections and
Health Policy; Take Action _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Take Action, Resources, AND cartoons -
Dec.12, 2024, xxxxxx

 

* PETE HEGSETH'S MOMMY CALLS SENATORS  --  CARTOON BY RICK MCKEE
* SYRIA - A SERIOUS QUESTION (RE: LIBERATION IN SYRIA IS A VICTORY
WORTH EMBRACING)  (DAVID BARKIN)
* RE: BIDEN URGED TO ACT NOW AS TRUMP’S MASS DEPORTATION PLAN
LOOMS  (CHUCK DINEEN)
* RE: PROGRESSIVES SLAM TRUMP PLAN TO END BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP
 (DAVID BENTON; TOM ABINANTI)
* RE: WHY I’M VOTING AGAINST THE MILITARY BUDGET  (DANIEL
MILLSTONE)
* RE: THE MOST BILLIONAIRES EVER  (NICHOLAS PAPPAS)
* UNCONVINCING ARGUMENT  --  CARTOON BY MIKE LUCKOVICH
* RE: DATA SUGGEST R’S WIN STREAK MAY BE SHORT  (BEN CUPP)
* RE: THIS WAS A VERY CLOSE ELECTION, TRUMP WON, BUT GOT LESS THAN
50% OF THE POPULAR VOTE, NOW LET’S ACT LIKE THAT AND BUILD ON IT –
MONROE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA – A CASE STUDY  (DANIEL MILLSTONE)
* RE: UNIONS BRACE THEMSELVES AS TRUMP PREPARES TO DEFANG LABOR
BOARD  (LOCAL 671 TEAMSTERS UNION)
* AI ASTROTURF  (ELLEN STARBIRD)
* RE: MASS PROTESTS FORCE SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT TO REVOKE SHOCKING
MARTIAL LAW DECLARATION AFTER 6 HOURS  (MARY-ALICE STROM)
* RE: GOOGLE A.I. AGENT ACES 15-DAY WEATHER FORECASTS  (KATE
PFORDRESHER)
* RE: REVEALED: THE OPERATORS BEHIND FOUR MAJOR NEO-NAZI X ACCOUNTS
 (DAVID BERGER)
* RE: SABOTAGE AS A TOOL OF SOLIDARITY  (GEORGIA WEVER)
* CLAIM DENIED  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY ROB ROGERS
* RE: INSURER SETS TIME LIMITS ON ANESTHESIA DURING SURGERIES
 (SILVIA BRANDON)
* $1.39 TRILLION IN PROFITS!  (MEME - WENDELL POTTER)
* RE: HOW HEALTH INSURANCE BECAME A BOON FOR BUSINESS  (MARK ROTH;
JIM BERTOLONE)
* RE: HOW UNITEDHEALTH’S PLAYBOOK FOR LIMITING MENTAL HEALTH
COVERAGE PUTS COUNTLESS AMERICANS’ TREATMENT AT RISK  (SILVIA
BRANDON)
* RE: VIOLENCE AGAINST HEALTHCARE WORKERS IS ON THE RISE –
WHAT’S BEHIND THIS SOCIAL ILL?  (ROBERT LAITE)
* RE: PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN HISTORIAN RASHID KHALIDI: ‘ISRAEL HAS
CREATED A NIGHTMARE SCENARIO FOR ITSELF. THE CLOCK IS TICKING’
 (SHELLEY DOUGLASS)
* RE: THE WEST BANK VILLAGES WIPED OFF THE MAP BY ISRAELI SETTLER
VIOLENCE  (MICHAEL HENRY STARKS)
* PRACTICALLY NO ONE  --  CARTOON BY CLAY BENNETT
* SLIPPERY FASCIST SLOPE  --  CARTOON BY MIKE STANFILL

.
Resources:

* Politicians, Power, And The People's Health: US Elections And
State Health Outcomes, 2012–2024  (Nancy Krieger, Soroush Moallef,
Jarvis T Chen, Ruchita Balasubramanian, Tori L Cowger, Rita Hamad,
Alecia J McGregor, William P Hanage, Loni Philip Tabb, Mary T Bassett
 in Health Affairs Scholar)
 

* TAKE ACTION: The US Labor Movement Calls for a Halt to US Military
Aid to Bring a Ceasefire to the Region

.

.
 

PETE HEGSETH'S MOMMY CALLS SENATORS  --  CARTOON BY RICK MCKEE

Rick McKee
December 4, 2024
Facebook
[[link removed]]

 

SYRIA - A SERIOUS QUESTION (RE: LIBERATION IN SYRIA IS A VICTORY WORTH
EMBRACING) 
 

I am troubled by the possibility that you will embrace events in Syria
as a "victory" in the tone of the piece from New Line Magazine
published today
[[link removed]].
The actions of Israel, the attacks of Turkey, and likely balkanization
of the territory with a terrible human cost is something that
progressives in the US should be wary of, if not seriously worrying
about the US role in what is likely to be a repeat of the disaster in
Libya in the not so distant past.

David Barkin

 

RE: BIDEN URGED TO ACT NOW AS TRUMP’S MASS DEPORTATION PLAN LOOMS
 

"President Biden must use the power of the pen to protect those
seeking sanctuary from the coming deportation machine that will crush
the human rights of our immigrant neighbors," said one Amnesty leader.

Chuck Dineen
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: PROGRESSIVES SLAM TRUMP PLAN TO END BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP
 

"Emboldened by a Supreme Court that would use its power to uphold
white supremacy rather than the constitution of our nation, Trump is
on a mission to weaken the very soul of our nation," said Rep. Delia
Ramirez.

David Benton
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Stop using elite terminology. Don't say "birthright".

Use simple everyday language that everyday people understand:

Trump wants to ignore the constitution that says everyone born in the
United States is citizen. What is he suggesting as an alternative?

Tom Abinanti

 

RE: WHY I’M VOTING AGAINST THE MILITARY BUDGET
 

Bernie Sanders [[link removed]] explains it
all about the great mess of our vast military budget and the pentagon
which mismanages it. Can we reduce the war machine? Can we spend the
money on what we need: actually affordable housing, good schools,
green infrastructure?  How can we elect 51 senators like Bernie?
Thanks to xxxxxx
[[link removed]]
for sending this along.

Daniel Millstone
Post on Facebook

 

RE: THE MOST BILLIONAIRES EVER
 

Corruption both politically and economically have caused this
disparity. The poor remain as such, the supposed middle class pays the
tax burden and the wealthy totally enjoys the fruits of their gain. 

Nicholas Pappas

 

UNCONVINCING ARGUMENT  --  CARTOON BY MIKE LUCKOVICH

 

Nike Luckovich
December 11, 2024
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
[[link removed]]

 

RE: DATA SUGGEST R’S WIN STREAK MAY BE SHORT
 

Trump is a level of dumpster fire never seen before in American
politics. Losing to him is like the Harlem globetrotters losing to the
Washington generals 100 times in a row. I don't care if it was 1 point
or 40 points losing to trump should indicate to the democrats that
everything they are doing is wrong.

Ben Cupp
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: THIS WAS A VERY CLOSE ELECTION, TRUMP WON, BUT GOT LESS THAN 50%
OF THE POPULAR VOTE, NOW LET’S ACT LIKE THAT AND BUILD ON IT –
MONROE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA – A CASE STUDY
 

There are dozens and dozens of explanations of the ghastly outcome of
the November elections. My ideas are still unclear. Jay Schaffner
[[link removed]], via xxxxxx
[[link removed]],
writes about his experience in North Eastern Pennsylvania. His
critiques of the Harris campaign on the  issues and organization are
useful, I think. People who might have been Harris voters stayed home
by the million. But why did anyone not an ultra-right-wing billionaire
vote for Trump? Millions of workers black and white, millions of
women, millions of Hispanics did. I feel I need to understand that. 

Daniel Millstone
Post on Facebook

 

RE: UNIONS BRACE THEMSELVES AS TRUMP PREPARES TO DEFANG LABOR BOARD

(Posting on xxxxxx Labor
[[link removed]])
 

Trump’s NLRB will likely be filled with lawyers from the
union-busting world hell-bent on rolling back workers’ gains.

Local 671 Teamsters Union
[[link removed]]
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

AI ASTROTURF
 

One of the most distressing trends in the wake of Democrats losing the
Presidency, House and Senate, having already ceded the Supreme Court;
is the number of bot "Mobilizations" suggesting we should get together
and vent before hunkering down to a fixed agenda of mobilization for
transgender rights, anti-deportation mobilizations. As a distraction
from confronting the billionaire tax give away these are harmless past
times. 

But it is irksome that there is no interest among the working families
wing of the Move On robotics world for consensus building. Trump won a
13% jump among Latino men who are cheerfully willing to see mass
deportations. Native Americans are more likely than transgender
children to commit suicide. But the focus is adamancy on the key
component of supporting cosmetic surgeons' wages. I noticed no
interest in women's equity in pay, nor abortion rights In the fixed
menu of things Move On thinks we should set our hair on fire about.
The group genuinely seems to want to manipulate by disparate cells,
building not consensus but only astroturf groups without input into an
agenda. Fight Back sloganeering could be straight from the Jan. 6th
turnout. The model is disturbing and seems cynically interested in
being merely busy accomplishing little but burnish to the Move on
billion dollar enterprise of influence peddling.

The most obvious coalition building, it seems to me, could be in
curtailing child labor for example. This would be something suburban
moms and labor folks and simple decency could coalesce around. Forcing
children to work in meat plants (the purpose of the legalizing of
child trafficking by "ending u and t visas" per Project 2025) should
be a unifying winner for those who feel economically constrained by a
labor "market" eroding wage gains. But instead the distraction
'coalition' seems oblivious to how to build out and carve the
questioning away from Trump's working class endorsers. 

Instead content to continue the same trajectory (losing elections and
eroding public support for progressive ideas) by continuing to fail,
refusing to listen to those who do not agree blindly and a strategy of
doing the same thing over again, only louder; promising, without
sincere expectation, a different result.

Ellen Starbird

 

RE: MASS PROTESTS FORCE SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT TO REVOKE SHOCKING
MARTIAL LAW DECLARATION AFTER 6 HOURS
 

I think, in many ways, what we witnessed in the last day, in the
24-hour period, is extraordinary. It’s an extraordinary example of
what Americans must learn from South Korea about how people, ordinary
people — it’s not governments or the military that will secure our
democracy. It will be people and people power. And I think we have to
take the lessons and learn from Dae-Han and other South Koreans that
have been organizing under an authoritarian-leaning government for the
last several years, as we prepare in 2025.

And I just have to add, I mean, what we witnessed in that six-hour
period of a strongman declaring martial law and the reaction by the
people and the other elected officials, including members of his own
party, going and protesting and vetoing that martial law order —
imagine what would have happened on January 6 if the American people
actually went, as the MAGA people were rioting and raiding our halls
of Congress, and if members of Congress and the people actually showed
up and refuted and condemned this action, what difference that would
have made and the difference that 2025 would be for this country and
for the world.

Mary-Alice Strom
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: GOOGLE A.I. AGENT ACES 15-DAY WEATHER FORECASTS
 

Thanks for posting this article.  Deep Mind seems a perfect case for
AI as a public utility or, at the least, for Google to pay for the
vast store of publicly supported data collection.  Very interesting
development.

Thanks again.

Kate Pfordresher

 

RE: REVEALED: THE OPERATORS BEHIND FOUR MAJOR NEO-NAZI X ACCOUNTS
 

Anonymity has long been a tactic used by extremists to spread their
ideology while avoiding social consequences, from Klansmen hoods to
online pseudonyms.

David Berger
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: SABOTAGE AS A TOOL OF SOLIDARITY

(Posting on xxxxxx Labor
[[link removed]])
 

As a wise person once told me, the labor movement grew before there
was a National labor relations act. Perhaps he was thinking of
sabotage.

Georgia Wever

 

CLAIM DENIED  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY ROB ROGERS

 

I do not condone violence against corporate CEOs, but I also do not
condone health care giants that deny claims while raking in billions
in profits.

Rob Rogers
December 10, 2024
TinyView [[link removed]]

 

RE: INSURER SETS TIME LIMITS ON ANESTHESIA DURING SURGERIES
 

I would like to say this is unbelievable but alas, it is not
unbelievable at all.  This is the world we live in.

Silvia Brandon
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

$1.39 TRILLION IN PROFITS!

 

BIG INSURANCE 2023: Revenues reached $1.39 trillion thanks to
taxpayer-funded Medicaid and Medicare Advantage businesses

The seven big for-profit U.S. health insurers, which also control
access to prescription drugs, have seen revenues increase by over 345%
in the last decade

Wendell Potter
HEALTH CARE un-covered
[[link removed]]

 

RE: HOW HEALTH INSURANCE BECAME A BOON FOR BUSINESS
 

How do you get this so wrong? It is *not* a "boon for business", it's
only a boon for the health insurance industry, and their investors.

In fact, it's vehemently anti-competitive for every other business.

Allow me to prove this: around 2016, I did something no journalist or
politician has done... I looked up the figures. Medicaid - younger
people - spends around $7300/yr for men, and about $8400/yr on women.

Meanwhile, the last several years before I retired in 2019, my company
was spending $12,000/yr per employee, and most of us were adding more.

Tell me any company, other than a health insurance company, would not
be happy if they could buy into Medicare for all, and save $4,000 or
more per employee.

Get the headline right.

mark roth
Silver Spring, MD

      =====

Pretty good history of our healthcare. One correction is that at the
2008 AFL-CIO Convention under President Richard Trumka, a Medicare For
All resolution was passed. National and Local Unions went back home
and continued to promote the current system to sell their lower health
care costs as selling unions and their own re-elections. Some unions
even profit from having their own union health insurance.

Jim Bertolone

 

RE: HOW UNITEDHEALTH’S PLAYBOOK FOR LIMITING MENTAL HEALTH COVERAGE
PUTS COUNTLESS AMERICANS’ TREATMENT AT RISK
 

The company is policing mental health care with arbitrary thresholds
and cost-driven targets, highlighting a key flaw in the U.S.
regulatory structure. The poorest and most vulnerable patients are now
most at risk of losing mental health coverage.

Silvia Brandon
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: VIOLENCE AGAINST HEALTHCARE WORKERS IS ON THE RISE – WHAT’S
BEHIND THIS SOCIAL ILL?

(Posting on xxxxxx Labor
[[link removed]])
 

21 years as a Nurse and I've been punched, kicked, bitten, slapped,
head-butted, scratched, poked, groped and spit on. I've had my fingers
squeezed, my arm twisted and been run into and over by wheelchairs.
Every time it happened there were ZERO consequences for the patient. I
was told by management "It's part of the job. What could YOU have done
to prevent this from happening?"

Robert Laite
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN HISTORIAN RASHID KHALIDI: ‘ISRAEL HAS
CREATED A NIGHTMARE SCENARIO FOR ITSELF. THE CLOCK IS TICKING’
 

The story isn't Hamas, religion or terrorism. Rashid Khalidi, the
preeminent Palestinian intellectual of our time, is convinced that the
Israelis simply don't understand the conflict - living in a 'bubble of
false consciousness' 

Shelley Douglass
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: THE WEST BANK VILLAGES WIPED OFF THE MAP BY ISRAELI SETTLER
VIOLENCE
 

Since October 7, over 50 rural Palestinian communities have been
forced to abandon their homes amid intensifying attacks, threats, and
harassment by Israeli settlers — almost always with the backing of
the army and police.

Michael Henry Starks
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

PRACTICALLY NO ONE  --  CARTOON BY CLAY BENNETT

 

Clay Bennett
December 10, 2024
Chattanooga Times Free Press
[[link removed]]

 

SLIPPERY FASCIST SLOPE  --  CARTOON BY MIKE STANFILL

 

 

Mike Stanfill
December 4, 2024
Raging Pencils
[[link removed]]

Raging Pencils is a thrice-weekly progressive comic
developed and created by Dallas-area illustrator
Mike Stanfill, sometimes known as "Lefty", sometimes not.

Nixon sucked! Reagan sucked! Both Bush's sucked!
Trump BIGLY sucks!
De-suckify your political life and support
Raging Pencils using Patreon. Thank you!

 

POLITICIANS, POWER, AND THE PEOPLE'S HEALTH: US ELECTIONS AND STATE
HEALTH OUTCOMES, 2012–2024
 

Nancy Krieger, Soroush Moallef, Jarvis T Chen, Ruchita
Balasubramanian, Tori L Cowger, Rita Hamad, Alecia J McGregor, William
P Hanage, Loni Philip Tabb, Mary T Bassett

Health Affairs Scholar [[link removed]],
Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2024, qxae163,

Our descriptive study examined current associations (2022–2024)
between 4 different types of state-level political measures and 8
different state-level health outcomes. The political measures included
2 rarely used in public health research (political ideology of elected
representatives based on voting records; trifectas, where 1 party
controls the executive and legislative branches) and 2 more commonly
used (state policies enacted; voter political lean). The health
outcomes spanned the life course: infant mortality, premature
mortality (death at age <65), health insurance (adults aged 35–64),
vaccination for children and persons aged =65 (flu; COVID-19 booster),
maternity care deserts, and food insecurity. For the first 3 outcomes,
we also examined trends in associations (2012–2024). Overall, higher
state-level political conservatism was associated with worse health
outcomes, especially for the measures of political ideology and state
trifecta. For example, in 2016, the premature mortality rate in states
with Republican vs Democratic trifectas was higher by 55.4 deaths per
100 000 person-years (95% CI: 7.7, 103.1). Their slope of the rate of
increase to 2021 was also higher, by 27.0 deaths per 100 000
person-years (95% CI: 24.4, 29.7). These results suggest elections,
political ideology, and concentrations of political power matter for
population health.

Elections are crucial to democratic governance, with results shaping
political priorities, policies, programs, resources, and—often
underappreciated—population health.1-10 At issue is who is elected,
with what political agendas, both individually and as tied to
political party affiliations and governing coalitions. Such statements
might seem to be truisms, but US population health research engaged
with issues of governance and health has primarily focused on policies
proposed or enacted8-13—and also more recently, voter political lean
(as spurred by the impact of political polarization on responses to
and the harms of the COVID-19 pandemic)14-23—and not on who enacts
the policies and their power to do so.1-7,21-25 Consequently, limited
US empirical evidence documents links between political ideologies,
political power, and population patterns of health and health
inequities.1-8,22-25

How and why politics affects population health, including the
magnitude of health inequities, is at core an interdisciplinary query

 

TAKE ACTION: THE US LABOR MOVEMENT CALLS FOR A HALT TO US MILITARY AID
TO BRING A CEASEFIRE TO THE REGION
 

THE US LABOR MOVEMENT CALLS FOR A HALT TO US MILITARY AID TO BRING A
CEASEFIRE TO THE REGION

When the National Labor Network for Ceasefire was formed it was on the
basis of agreement to a statement that made a number of core demands:

* AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE IN GAZA BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HAMAS.
* RESTORATION OF BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.
* IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF HOSTAGES TAKEN BY HAMAS.
* UNIMPEDED FULL ACCESS FOR HUMANITARIAN AID.
* OUR PRESIDENT CALLING FOR A PERMANENT CEASEFIRE.

In the more than a year since, it has become clear that these demands
will never be met so long as the U.S. government continues to provide
open-ended military aid to Israel. The unchecked supply of weapons has
led to the expansion of the conflict to multiple countries and is
drawing the US into a growing regional war.

For this reason, NLNC is issuing a new statement that, in addition to
its original demands, calls upon the U.S. government to end all
military aid to Israel.

* There must be a ceasefire in Gaza, and the fundamental rights of
people must be
restored.
* The hostages taken by Hamas must be immediately released, along
with the
release of Palestinian prisoners of war.
* To achieve these ends, the U.S. Government must halt military aid
to Israel
immediately.

Ten national unions and more than 250 local and regional labor
organizations endorsed the original statement. Together this
represents more than half of all union members in the U.S. The labor
movement spoke out and its position was widely covered in the media.
 

IT IS TIME FOR US TO SPEAK OUT AGAIN!

W_e urge unions and other labor organizations to endorse this new
statement__, AND ENCOURAGE THEIR MEMBERS AND ALLIES TO ALSO SIGN ON AS
INDIVIDUALS._ Together we can make a powerful statement on behalf of
organized labor and help to build the movement to bring this terrible
conflict to an end.

Organizations can endorse and individuals can sign onto this new NLNC
statement here:

[[link removed]]

[link removed]

Spread the word!
Please share this announcement
with other union leaders and members.

[[link removed]]

* Reader Comments
[[link removed]]
* Trump 2.0
[[link removed]]
* Resistance 2.0
[[link removed]]
* Trump transition
[[link removed]]
* Pete Hegseth
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* 2024 Elections
[[link removed]]
* military budget
[[link removed]]
* deportations
[[link removed]]
* mass deportation
[[link removed]]
* Immigrants
[[link removed]]
* immigrant communities
[[link removed]]
* xenophobia
[[link removed]]
* Racism
[[link removed]]
* Health Policy
[[link removed]]
* Health Care
[[link removed]]
* health insurance
[[link removed]]
* Medicare Advantage
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* West Bank
[[link removed]]
* Ceasefire
[[link removed]]
* U.S.-Israel military aid
[[link removed]]
* Hostages
[[link removed]]
* Cartoons
[[link removed]]
* Take Action
[[link removed]]
* resources
[[link removed]]

*
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*
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*
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