Some Sunday Morning News Articles to Read

GOP goes on the attack against Biden relief bill, The Hill, Jordain Carney, March 13, 2020

Not that this is a surprise as Repubs will punish the nation as a whole to get back at Dems. “Republicans are going on the attack against the newly signed $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill as they scramble to find a messaging foothold against Democrats’ first big win heading into 2022.”

Repubs lock stepping, they are determined to upset the economy and the people who will most benefit from the Covid Relief bill. Some of the nations citizens claim trump should get credit for the economic recovery and that “much of the bill has nothing to do with the pandemic (McConnell).”

Two Bills to Support Farmers of Color Introduced, Farm Aid Blog, Jennifer Fany, February 9, 2021

Closet racists coming out and whining about Biden’s Covid relief bill providing more than Covid Relief. Well, the Relief Bill did not create this targeted help.

 Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) introduced the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act yesterday, co-sponsored by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).

And the Justice for Black Farmers Act was re-introduced by Senator Cory Booker, picking up additional support from Senator Reverend Warnock, Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). McConnell and Republicans sat on this one during trump’s short reign.

Why now? “A war waged by deed of title has dispossessed 98 percent of black agricultural landowners in America.”

How Facebook Is Killing Journalism and Democracy, Washington Monthly, David Atkins, March 13, 2021

There was a time when advertising would support blogs like Angry Bear through spot advertisements. Those days are long gone and the advertising funds are mediocre at best.

Buzzfeed fired (The Guardian, Adam Gabbatt) dozens of journalists after acquiring “HuffPost.”  The move was part of an ongoing, painful belt-tightening in the world of digital media–a dark and dispiriting world in which journalists will actively discourage young people from following in their footsteps. While the flagship New York Times is thriving (in keeping with the winner-take-all effect of much of the rest of the economy), most other medium and small-scale journalism organizations have struggled to survive.

A Comparison of Hospital Administrative Costs In Eight Nations: US Costs Exceed All Others By Far, Health Affairs, September 2014

This report is from 2013; HOWEVER, it is still relevant today as ad ministrative costs in working with private insurance companies has grown as there is no Single Payer system. The result is multiples of people handling claims in different formats.

“All nations struggle with rising health care costs. Administrative costs accounted for 25.3 percent of total US hospital expenditures and is an increasing percentage yearly. Next highest were the Netherlands (19.8 percent) and England (15.5 percent), both of which are transitioning to market-oriented payment systems. Scotland and Canada, whose single-payer systems pay hospitals global operating budgets, with separate grants for capital, had the lowest administrative costs.

Alabama GOP gives Trump resolution proclaiming him greatest president, Daily Mail, Katelyn Caralle

Sunday Morning humor  .   .   .

“The Alabama Republican Party presented Donald Trump on Saturday evening with a framed resolution declaring him ‘one of the greatest and most effective presidents’ in the history of the U.S.

The proclamation was passed unanimously by the state’s GOP and presented to the former president at his South Florida Mar-a-Lago resort on Saturday.”

Man sues Hertz for not producing a receipt that cleared him of murder, CBS News, March 12, 2021

“A Michigan man who spent nearly five years in custody is suing Hertz for failing to produce in a timely manner a receipt that would have proved his innocence long before he was convicted of murder. The evidence from the car rental company was finally obtained in 2018, leading to Herbert Alford’s exoneration in Ingham County last year.

Alford filed a lawsuit against Hertz on Tuesday, although the case will be slowed by the company’s bankruptcy reorganization. He is seeking financial compensation.”

Gee whata surprise, it happened in Michigan!

‘Passive Enabler’: Senator Roy Blunt Blasted by Hometown Paper for Bailing on ‘Extremist’ GOP, NewsWeek, Christina Zhao, March 14, 2021

Kevin McDermott of St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board: “Bunt personified what establishment Republican became during the Trump era: passive enablers to a chronically mendacious, constitutionally malicious, mentally unfit president.

Blunt joins a growing list of mainstream Senate Republicans who have opted to bail,” McDermott added. “Now Blunt is, once again, personifying the GOP establishment, this time by exiting the extremist bunker that his party has become—a trend that intensified under Trump, as Blunt and others at the grownups’ table stared down at their plates in mute terror.”

Senator Collins’ Game Has Been Exposed, Horizons, Nancy LeTourneau, “a pragmatic progressive who has been blogging about politics since 2007.”

In other words, Collins wants us to believe that this time, she wanted to hold the football up for Charlie Brown to kick. Calling her out on that fabrication is “extraordinary backhanding.” But before the Senate passed the coronavirus relief package, Collins said something that caught my eye.  

Susan Collins says she’s “increasingly convinced” the WH isn’t seeking compromise on stimulus, per Hill pool.

“I don’t understand how the WH can describe a bill that passed the House without a single Republican vote as being bipartisan. What was bipartisan was the opposition.”— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) March 1, 2021

It is the last sentence that gives away her game. In his book The New New Deal, Michael Grunwald documented the 2009 Republican plan for total obstruction. As he reported, the talking point they wanted to use was:

“The only thing bipartisan was the opposition.”

The plan was to obstruct everything Democrats attempted to do and then blame them for failing to be bipartisan. In reviving the 2009 talking point, Collins demonstrated her alignment with the current iteration of total obstruction.