House Judiciary Committee staff compiled an excellent primer on impeachment; its only 55 pp. and imminently readable. It answers many of the questions we all may have about the standards for impeachment, the rules of procedure in impeachment cases, and the standards of evidence.
Presidents Zelensky and Putin of the Ukraine and Russia respectively are scheduled to meet this Monday in Paris. French President Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel are hosting the meeting and facilitating negotiations. The goal is to get the Russian troops out of Eastern Ukraine, the Donbass industrial region and to reintegrate the region back into the Ukraine, possibly with increased regional autonomy.
We are a group of American lawyers from all walks of life dedicated to the rule of law and the preservation of our democracy (please see our website www.lawyersdefendingdemocracy.org).
We urge the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives to consider in the exercise of its current impeachment responsibilities the many ways President Donald Trump has abused his power and thereby threatens our constitutional framework and not confine itself to the Ukraine matter alone.
Health care reforms need to control costs, cover everyone and improve health outcomes; at least that’s my opinion. The single payer (supported by Senators Warren and Sanders) does the best job, but falls down on producing a well-organized system to improve health outcomes (essentially it’s fragmented and unaccountable care). Moreover, it is very expensive to finance and is quite disruptive of existing coverage that many may prefer to retain.
It looks as if many in the suburbs have had it with the Donald J. Trump Republican Party. It also appears that Democrats are not much closer to winning back rural and small town white ex-Democratic voters in the South.
The US is projected to spend about $52 trillion on health costs over the next 10 years. About half of that is public spending from the states and federal government on programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran’s Affairs, Indian Health Services, the uninsured, etc. About half is from the private sector from employers and employees for their employment-based coverage, from patients for their copays and deductibles, and from individuals for their individual health insurance.
American health care costs about twice as much as in other countries – about 18% of our GDP. It is due to high prices for hospitals, doctors, drugs and medical equipment. We are not getting better results; in fact across many aspects of care, we are getting demonstrably poorer results whether it’s life expectancy, or infant or maternal mortality. Bad results in America are also due to non-medical causes such as gun violence and spreading obesity, which require difficult but needed societal changes.
Senator Warren has just released new details and new costs projections of her Medicare for All Plan. Several weeks ago the Urban Institute released a ten-year cost projection of $34 trillion in new federal funding needed for Senator Warren and Senator Sanders’ Medicare for All Plan. She was challenged by Vice President Biden and Mayor Pete and others as to how she intended to pay for it. She was also challenged as to how to pay for it without raising taxes on the middle class.
I urge you to get involved in writing to your elected representatives of all political stripes, participating and actively exercising your rights of free speech and freedom of assembly. There are ample opportunities to get involved locally and nationally.
The impeachment inquiry is set to move beyond closed door depositions of witnesses to the President’s impeachable conduct to a series of public hearings and committee votes leading up to a decision on the President’s impeachment. https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20191028/BILLS-116-HRes660.pdf The vote on the House resolution is scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday, October 31).
In California about 12 million Californians live in high fire danger zones – i.e. when the Santa Ana and Diablo winds blow in the fall, a man made spark can set off the dry brush, and people can lose their homes, their entire communities, their lives.
Business and labor undergird the Republican and Democratic parties respectively. However, many in the business community think that President Trump is driving our nation right off the cliff with his trade and immigration policies and general divisiveness and incompetence, and they are supporting Democrats in growing numbers. Likewise, too many white working class workers found President Trump’s messages on trade and immigration appealing and voted for the President in the last election despite the positions of their union leadership. White middle class men and women are split on the appeal and utter revulsion they feel for the nation’s president.
To date, Congress has been interviewing witnesses behind closed doors. Witnesses’ preliminary statements may be released, but their full depositions are not. There is selective leaking by those supportive of and opposed to the President. The media are conducting their own investigations and releasing pertinent information. The facts on their face appear damning, but we may be seeing only the tips of the iceberg.
There is an excellent new study from the Urban Institute that gives the costs and the impacts of a variety of different reform proposals. The estimated 2020 costs range from $26 billion to $2.7 trillion, depending on the details of the reform proposal. It will help you make sense of the Democratic presidential debates on health reforms and the 2020 election issues and beyond.
Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar and Corey Booker impressed me the most. Bernie Sanders was excellent as well.
I write in strong support of Congress’ impeachment inquiry. President Trump’s conduct in seeking to persuade a foreign government to initiate proceedings against one of his chief election rivals is an impeachable offense as envisaged by the framers of the US Constitution. In terms of violating constitutional red lines, I would liken it to driving 100 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road while drunk.