Ranked Choice Voting: Some Notes on the Politics
Walter OlsonRanked choice voting had a good showing at the polls this month,meeting with approval in eight of the ten cities and counties to consider it, including Seattle, Portland and surrounding Multnomah County, Ore., Fort Collins, Colo., and Evanston, Ill. (Two Washington counties, Clark and San Juan, rejected the idea.) Perhaps most significant, Nevada votersapproved Question 3, which would make Nevada the second state to adopt the double reform pioneered by Alaska: replacing conventional party primaries with a universal qualifying round from which the top five candidates (four in Alaska) advance to a ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 29, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
What Biden Has Gotten Right on Immigration
David J. BierPresident Biden ’s handling of immigration is the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism from all sides. Much of this criticism is right, but the president has also implemented many positive policies. While it often acted too slowly and has much more to do, the new administration has already reversed the most important restrictionist policies imposed by the Trump administration.Major Big Picture ActionsEnding the “security” travel bansOn January 20, 2021, President Bidenfully rescinded President Trump ’s ban on immigration and certain travel for nationals of Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Syria,...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 29, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
The Republican Base
Donald Trump knows that he can ' t win an election if he alienates his neo-Nazi constituents. FromThe Guardian: Donald Trump repeatedly refused to disavow the outspoken antisemite and white supremacist Nick Fuentes after they spoke over dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort, rejecting the advice from advisers over fears he might alienate a section of his base, two people familiar with the situation said. . . . Trump eschewed making outright disavowals of Fuentes, the people said, and none of the statements from the campaign or on his Truth Social account included criticism of Fuentes, despite efforts from advise...
Source: Stayin' Alive - November 28, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Rise and Fall
As I believe I have mentioned, I am reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer. It ' s a cube of paper, and he spends a lot of pages on meticulous detail of large events, so it ' s a slog. I ' m about 1/3 of the way through. At this point Neville Chamberlain, who has a more than fair bid to be history ' s greatest fool, has gifted Czechoslovakia to Hitler in exchange for Hitler ' s assurance that he has no further territorial designs. The persecution of Germany ' s Jews is well advanced, with Jews having been barred from all professions, synagogues burned, businesses smashed, and property looted. Many ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - November 26, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
DACA Population Continues to Decline —Falling Below 600,000
ConclusionThe size of the future DACA population is important for policymakers and researchers to understand because it affects the likely costs and benefits of providing permanent legal status to this group. The Congressional Budget Office, for instance, has a static fiscal costs model that estimates that the costs will outweigh the benefits. This estimate—whichconflictswith other research —is the only estimate that matters for purposes of the congressional budget, and if the population is smaller, it may actually make it easier for members of Congress to find a deal to preserve the program or provide a permanent ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 23, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
America, the intolerant
BY ANISH KOKA
Historically, the great tension between liberty and authority was between government as embodied by the ruling class and its subjects. Marauding barbarians and warring city-states meant that society endowed a particular class within society with great powers to protect the weaker members of society. It was quickly recognized that the ruling class could use these powers for its own benefit on the very people it was meant to protect, and so society moved to preserve individual liberties first by recognizing certain rights that rulers dare not breach lest they risk rebellion. The natural nex...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 23, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Public Health Anish Koka COVID-19 in-hospital death Source Type: blogs
What's in a name?
As regularly as the tide, some right-wing aspiring genius makes the amazing discovery that Nazi is short for National Socialism. Aha! The Nazis were actually socialists!Did you know that the official name of the North Korean state is the Democratic People ' s Republic of Korea? Aha! North Korea is a democracy! In fact, the major financial backers of the Nazi party during its rise to power were Germany ' s leading industrialist and bankers. (Who obviously were not Jewish.) The other two major parties in Germany throughout the period when the Nazis were contesting elections were the Communists and the Social Democrats. ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - November 21, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
When Push Comes to Shove: The AMA v. Dobbs. Part 2.
BY MIKE MAGEE
On November 8, 2022, five days after the 2022 Midterm elections, the AMA raised its voice in opposition to Republican efforts to promote second class citizenship for women by exerting public control over them and their doctors intensely private reproductive decisions. At the same time they sprinkled candidates on both sides of the aisle with AMA PAC money, raising questions whether their love of women includes active engagement or just passive advocacy.
Trump and his now MAGAGA (“Make America Great and Glorious Again”) movement has now returned to center stage. With the...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 21, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Supreme Court AMA Clarence Thomas Dobbs v. Jackso MAGAGA Mike Magee Roe v. Wade Source Type: blogs
When Push Comes to Shove: The AMA v. Dobbs. Part 1.
BY MIKE MAGEE
Should anyone present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.” Book of Common Prayer, Church of England, 1549
Last evening Trump rose from the ashes and declared it was time to “Make America Great and Glorious Again” (MAGAGA).
This past week, five days after the Midterm elections, AMA President, Jack Resnick, Jr., MD, raised his voice from the podium at the AMA Interim Meeting in Hawaii with the AMA’s own version of a call to action:
“But make no mistake, when politicians insert themselves in our exam room...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 18, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Supreme Court AMA AMA v. Dobbs Dobbs v. Jackson Mike Magee Trump Source Type: blogs
Understanding the MAGA cult
William Shirer, many years before he published The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, published Berlin Diary, an account of his time as a correspondent in Berlin during the ascendancy of Hitler. When the war started, he of course had to leave. In Berlin Diary he wrote:" We are strong, and we will get stronger, " Hitler shouted at them through the microphone, his words echoing across the hushed field through loudspeakers. And there in the floodlit night, massed together like sardines in one mass formation, the little men of Germany who have made Naziism possible achieved the highest state of being the Germanic man knows: the...
Source: Stayin' Alive - November 17, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.
November 17,
2022 Edition
-----
In the US we
are seeing the washup from the Mid-Term elections with a much more even outcome
than expected which is good news for the world – especially that the US democracy
seems to still be working. Wonderfully Trump seems to be a spent force - how good!
In the UK and
Europe we see recession bearing down, The only questions are how long and how
deep.
In OZ (Source: Australian Health Information Technology)
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - November 17, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Introducing Empowering the New American Worker
Scott LincicomeIt seems like everywhere you go in Washington these days, you find some aspiring politician, bureaucrat, or wonk lamenting the supposed plight of today ’s American worker and—of course—promising to fix it. President Trump, for example, had a 2020 “Pledge to America ’s Workers” that heralded past executive actions supposedly helping American workers, and President Biden has embraced similar rhetoric and policies (e.g., his “worker centric” trade policy and recent infrastructure, energy, and semiconductor laws that, he says,createjobs for American workers).Unfortunately, and as the Trump a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 10, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Scott Lincicome Source Type: blogs
Written Protocol vs. Common Sense
Steve Valdez only wanted to cash a check. In retrospect it seems so simple. The check was written to him from his wife’s account at Bank of America. He had two forms of ID, both with photos. The address on the drivers license was the same as the ID on the check (printed by Bank of America.) Bank of America thought differently.
Here’s the rub. B of A has a written policy that states if you don’t have an account at their bank you need to leave a thumbprint. You’ve probably seen those by now. Either you dab your thumb in an ink blotter or you use the fancy thumb scanner. But Steve Valdez doesn’t have any arms. An...
Source: The EMT Spot - November 10, 2022 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Steve Whitehead Tags: EMT Source Type: blogs
Political Science
There ' s a Facebook group for my small town. It ' s mostly about stray animals, small businesses advertising, local events, high school sports, that sort of thing. The rules are supposed to be " no politics " but as you might guess that isn ' t always honored. People have posted weird paranoid propaganda about the public school system, which I won ' t dignify with an explanation. A couple of days ago somebody posted a link to a news article about coming electric and natural gas rate increases, and a commenter posted a boast about some of our fellow townspeople having been at the January 6 insurrection. Really.So, here ' s...
Source: Stayin' Alive - November 5, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
New U.S. Semiconductor Export Controls Warrant Caution
Clark PackardThe U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) recentlyannounced a new set of sweeping export controls —focused on semiconductors and advanced computing—with the goal of stunting the growth of China’s technology industry and protecting U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. The announcement comes on the heels of a major speech made by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the Special Competitive Studies Project Global Emerging Technologies Summit in mid ‐September, in which he laid out, in part, the Biden administration’s approach to U.S. export controls. Though couched in...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 4, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Clark Packard Source Type: blogs
