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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/coronavirus-news-live-updates-the-new-york-times-5/

Coronavirus News: Live Updates - The New York Times

International clinical trials published on Wednesday confirmed the hope that cheap, widely available steroid drugs can help seriously ill patients survive Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Following release of the new data, the World Health Organization on Wednesday strongly recommended steroids for treatment of patients with severe or critical Covid-19 worldwide. But the agency recommended against giving the drugs to patients with mild disease.

The new studies include an analysis that pooled data from seven randomized clinical trials evaluating three steroids in over 1,700 patients. The study concluded that each of the three drugs reduced the risk of death.

That paper and three related studies were published in the journal JAMA, along with an editorial describing the research as an “important step forward in the treatment of patients with Covid-19.”

Corticosteroids should now be the first-line treatment for critically ill patients, the authors added. The only other drug shown to be effective in seriously ill patients, and only modestly at that, is remdesivir.

Steroids like dexamethasone, hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone are often used by doctors to tamp down the body’s immune system, alleviating inflammation, swelling and pain. Many Covid-19 patients die not of the virus, but of the body’s overreaction to the infection.

The analysis of pooled data found that steroids were linked with a one-third reduction in deaths among Covid-19 patients. Dexamethasone produced the strongest results: a 36 percent drop in deaths in 1,282 patients treated in three separate trials.

In June, researchers at Oxford University discovered that dexamethasone seemed to improve survival rates in severely ill patients. Researchers had hoped that other inexpensive steroids might help these patients.

Taken together, the new studies will bolster confidence in the use of steroids and address any lingering hesitancy on the part of some physicians, said Dr. Todd Rice, an associate professor of medicine and critical care physician at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

“This shows us steroids are clearly beneficial in this population and should clearly be given, unless you absolutely can’t for some reason, which needs to be a pretty rare occasion,” he said.

Dr. Scott W. Atlas has argued that the science of mask wearing is uncertain, that children cannot pass on the coronavirus and that the role of the government is not to stamp out the virus but to protect its most vulnerable citizens as Covid-19 takes its course.

Ideas like these, ideologically freighted and scientifically disputed, have propelled Dr. Atlas, a radiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution, into President Trump’s White House.

Mr. Trump has embraced Dr. Atlas even as he upsets the balance of power within the White House coronavirus task force with ideas that top government doctors and scientists find misguided — even dangerous — according to people familiar with the task force’s deliberations.

That might be the point.

“I think Trump clearly does not like the advice he was receiving from the people who are the experts — Fauci, Birx, etc. — so he has slowly shifted from their advice to somebody who tells him what he wants to hear,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University. He was referring to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease scientist, and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.

Dr. Atlas is neither an epidemiologist nor an infectious disease expert, but his frequent appearances on Fox News and his ideological surety caught the president’s eye.

The core of his appeal in the West Wing rests in his libertarian-style approach to disease management akin to one used to disastrous effect in Sweden. The argument: Most people infected will not get seriously ill, and at some point, enough people will have antibodies to deprive the virus of carriers — “herd immunity.” His embrace of this has alienated his colleagues.

“Trying to get to herd immunity other than with a vaccine isn’t a strategy. It’s a catastrophe,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, the former C.D.C. director.

Joseph R. Biden Jr., pressing his argument that President Trump is failing the country with his handling of the coronavirus, plans on Wednesday to make the case that Mr. Trump is hurting the nation’s parents, teachers and schoolchildren with his push for schools to reopen.

Mr. Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, a community college professor, are scheduled to receive a briefing in Wilmington, Del., from a group of experts, including Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who served as secretary of health and human services for President Obama and is now the president of American University, and Linda Darling-Hammond, the president of the California State Board of Education.

Mr. Biden will then give a speech on what his campaign described as Mr. Trump’s failures on the pandemic as well as Mr. Biden’s plan to reopen schools safely.

Symone Sanders, a senior adviser for the Biden campaign, said Mr. Trump was “barreling forward trying to reopen schools because he thinks it will help his own re-election.”

“We believe this is a key contrast for voters,” Ms. Sanders said. “President Trump, who continues to ignore the science and has no plan to get the virus under control, and Joe Biden, who is working with the experts and putting together an effective plan to beat the virus and reopen schools safely.”

Mr. Trump has demanded that schools reopen this fall and threatened to cut federal funding for school districts that defied his wishes. But his effort to pressure schools did not have the effect he desired, and many districts decided to begin the school year with remote instruction.

As Iowa has faced the most new virus cases per capita of any state over the last seven days, Joni Ernst, the state’s junior senator and a Republican in a tight race for re-election, echoed a debunked conspiracy theory that coronavirus death tolls were being greatly inflated and suggested that health care providers had a financial motive to falsify cases.

Ms. Ernst said she was “so skeptical” of the government’s national statistics about virus fatalities, according to an account in The Courier newspaper of a campaign stop she made in Waterloo, a city of about 70,000.

“They’re thinking there may be 10,000 or less deaths that were actually singularly Covid-19,” Ms. Ernst said. “I’m just really curious. It would be interesting to know that.”

The confirmed death toll from the pandemic in the United States is at least 184,000, and independent analyses have said the figure is probably even higher — most likely around 200,000 — in part because some deaths connected to infection from the virus have not been recognized as such.

Ms. Ernst’s comments seemed to track a false claim spread by President Trump over the weekend. Twitter removed the president’s tweet on the subject for violating the site’s disinformation rules, because the claim is linked to the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory.

The claim inaccurately said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6%” of the people counted in the death toll — or about 9,000 people — “actually died from Covid.”

“It’s not 9,000 deaths from Covid-19, it’s 180-plus-thousand deaths,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said on Tuesday.

Dr. Fauci made clear that the mere fact that a person had other health problems, or comorbidities, as well as the coronavirus does not mean that they did not die of Covid-19. He said there should “not be any confusion about that.’’

A superspreader event on a bus focuses scientists on the likelihood of airborne transmission.

In late January, as the new coronavirus was beginning to spread from China’s Hubei Province, a group of lay Buddhists traveled by bus to a temple ceremony in the city of Ningbo — hundreds of miles from Wuhan, center of the epidemic.

A passenger on one of the buses had recently dined with friends from Hubei. She apparently did not know she carried the coronavirus. Within days, 24 fellow passengers on her bus were also found to be infected.

It did not matter how far a passenger sat from the infected individual on the bus, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Tuesday. Even passengers in the very last row, seven behind the infected woman, caught the virus.

The incident adds to a large body of evidence indicating that the coronavirus can be transmitted by tiny particles that linger in the air, and not just through large respiratory droplets that fall quickly to the ground.

The new study “adds strong epidemiological evidence that the virus is transmitted through the air, because if it were not, we would only see cases close to the index patient — but we see it spread throughout the bus,” said Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and a leading expert on airborne viruses.

The potential for airborne transmission in close confined spaces raises concern about the winter months, when people will be spending more time indoors, Dr. Marr said. Her advice: “Avoid crowded indoor spaces where people are not wearing masks and the ventilation is poor.”

In his first public general audience since the pandemic hit, Pope Francis met a few hundred faithful on Wednesday in an imposing courtyard inside the Vatican.

Many from the cheerful crowd stood up from their socially distanced seats as Francis got out of his car, waving and filming him on their cellphones. Some talked with him from behind masks as he walked by the barriers with a large smile.

As he began speaking, Francis said that it was “beautiful” to encounter people “face to face and not screen to screen,” referring to the weekly virtual audiences from the papal library that he has been holding since March.

“The current pandemic has highlighted our interdependence,” Francis said, calling for solidarity. “We are all linked to each other, for better or for worse.”

Francis, whose papacy has been marked partly by concern for the earth, has often also urged the faithful to use the current situation to make significant changes in their lives and rediscover simpler and sustainable lifestyles. On Tuesday, he called for an examination of our energy usage, consumption, transportation and diet, and said the earth could recover “if we allow it to rest.”

He brought attention to the most vulnerable countries affected by the pandemic, which now need “regeneration packages,” and he announced a day of prayer and fasting for Lebanon, which suffered an explosion on Aug. 4 that leveled parts of the capital, killed more than 100 people and injured thousands more.

Australia falls into its first recession in almost 30 years.

After nearly three decades of economic growth, Australia officially fell into recession after its economy shrank 7 percent in the second quarter, the government said on Wednesday.

The drop in quarterly G.D.P. is the largest since record-keeping began in 1959, Michael Smedes, head of national accounts at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, said in a statement.

Restrictions that were imposed in March during the virus’s first surge greatly reduced domestic spending on transportation, hotels and restaurants, while border bans hit the tourism and education industries.

Australia’s second-most populous state, Victoria, remains under lockdown as it fights a surge that was driven by returning travelers. Officials on Wednesday extended Victoria’s state of emergency for six months, a designation that gives them broad powers to enact virus-related restrictions as needed.

In the end, more than $150 billion in stimulus packages could not ward off a recession.

“Today’s devastating numbers confirm what every Australian knows: that Covid-19 has wrecked havoc on our economy and our lives like nothing we have ever experienced before,” Josh Frydenberg, the country’s treasurer, said on Wednesday.

The new data marked a sobering end to what had once seemed an endless boom driven by immigration, rising trade with Asia and careful monetary policy. More than a million Australians were unemployed in July, and the unemployment rate of 7.5 percent was the worst in 22 years.

“The road ahead will be long,” Mr. Frydenberg said. “The road ahead will be hard. The road ahead will be bumpy.”

Australia has recorded 663 coronavirus deaths and more than 25,000 cases, according to a New York Times database.

Greece reported the first case of the coronavirus in the Moria camp for migrants on the Aegean island of Lesbos. The migration ministry said the facility would be locked down for two weeks as health inspectors tested other residents. Living conditions at the camp have been decried by human rights groups as it hosts nearly 12,000 people, four times its maximum capacity of 3,000. The patient is a 40-year-old man from Somalia who left after securing refugee status but “returned illegally to Moria and had been living in a tent outside the camp’s perimeter,” the ministry said.

In other news around the world:

As the number of new virus cases in Indonesia surges, the virus has taken a heavy toll on medical professionals. The Indonesian Medical Association said on Tuesday that 102 doctors and nine dentists had died from Covid-19, and the Indonesian National Nurses Association said 70 nurses had died. As of Wednesday, Indonesia had reported 7,505 deaths and 177,571 cases, including about 20,000 cases in the past week, according to a New York Times database. Independent experts say the actual number could be much higher because Indonesia lags behind in testing and its positivity rate is nearly 15 percent.

Direct international flights to Beijing, the capital of China, will gradually resume, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said Wednesday, as the coronavirus outbreak comes under control in the region. Flights from eight countries — Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Greece, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Canada — may fly to Beijing again, starting Thursday, the authorities said.

Hungary reported a daily record on Wednesday, with 365 new cases. The number is higher than even what it reported in April, when the pandemic was worsening in many countries. Last week, several members of the government entered quarantine after coming into contact with someone who later tested positive for the coronavirus. Hungary has barred most foreign travelers and is making returning citizens isolate themselves. It has had relatively few cases, 6,257, and just over 600 deaths, according to a New York Times database.

After mass demonstrations in Berlin last weekend against the government’s coronavirus regulations, the city decided to require masks at large protests. Now, organizers say they’re planning a large event elsewhere in Germany, but they deny that has anything to do with Berlin’s mask rule. The head of the group, Michael Ballweg, said in a radio interview Tuesday that the protests, timed for the 30th anniversary of German reunification on Oct. 3, would be at Lake Constance, in the south.

Also in Germany, the state of Saxony will allow 8,500 fans to attend the opening match that RB Leipzig will host against Mainz 05 on Sept. 20. The Bundesliga, Germany’s top league, shut down in March, but it restarted to finish the season without fans in a series of “ghost matches.” Despite federal guidelines that limit mass gatherings, RB Leipzig convinced local and state authorities that it could limit the risk of infection. The stadium, which usually holds 43,000, will only be 20 percent full; alcohol will not be sold, and masks will be required.

The pharmaceutical giant Roche, in Switzerland, announced that new antigen tests would be going on sale in several countries in Europe by the end of September. The tests are advertised as giving reliable results in 15 minutes. The company will have 40 million tests available for the launch, it said in a statement.

N.Y.C. residents can now work out at local gyms. Here’s what to expect.

Most New Yorkers have lived without communal workouts since mid-March, when the governor closed gyms across the state.

Gyms seem an intuitively high-risk environment, and New York waited until August to give the go-ahead. New York City gyms had to wait until Wednesday to reopen.

Gyms offering weights and exercise machines are allowed to reopen, with limits, but many other exercise facilities have not been approved and gym-goers must wear face coverings.

Indoor pools and places that only offer group fitness classes, like spinning, Zumba, yoga and Pilates, are not allowed to reopen because the city sees those activities as higher risk.One-on-one sessions with personal trainers or yoga teachers are allowed.

Elsewhere in the New York area:

In New York City, where indoor dining remains prohibited, the mayor said on Wednesday that he felt like the industry was owed more clarity this month on a possible timeline and set of standards for reopening. “We need to decide that in the next few weeks,” the mayor said, “whether its good news or bad news.”

As colleges reopen despite the pandemic, students, including in the New York area, must decide whether they are willing to blow the whistle on their classmates to protect against an outbreak at their schools by policing campus safety.

Reporting was contributed by Thomas Kaplan, Juliana Kim, Niki Kitsantonis, Isabella Kwai, Benjamin Novak, Richard C. Paddock, Gaia Pianigiani, Roni Caryn Rabin, Christopher F. Schuetze, Michael D. Shear, Dera Menra Sijabat, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Eileen Sullivan, Jim Tankersley, Noah Weiland and Elaine Yu.

#coronavirus #updates #World

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trmpt · 4 years ago

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mizelaneus · 4 years ago

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newyorkprelawland-blog · 4 years ago

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The Supreme Court & Sexual Health: Opting Out Of Birth Control

By Emily Ehrlich, Syracuse University College of Law Class of 2022

July 15, 2020

On Wednesday, July 8, 2020, the Supreme Court took a further step in determining whether employers must provide their female employees with health insurance that offers birth control.[1]The Court, in a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Thomas, determined that the federal government had the power under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), to create religious and moral exemptions for employers from providing healthcare that included contraceptive coverage.[2]This landmark case, Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania (“Little Sisters”), found that the Trump administration had also complied with the Administrative Procedure Act (“ACA”) when promulgating the “moral” exemption to healthcare coverage.[3]

The ACA was enacted into law by the Obama administration in March of 2010, with three primary goals of (1) making affordable health insurance more widely available, (2) expanding Medicaid to those living in poverty, and (3) lowering the cost of health care generally.[4]Under the ACA, employers were required to provide health insurance to female employees that covered preventative health care, which included contraception.[5]However,under the ACA, a nonprofit religious employer who objected to providing contraceptive services, could file for an exemption, and thereby avoid providing contraceptives to employees.[6]

Prior to Little Sisters, the Supreme Court had addressed the ACA in terms of religious exemptions to coverage. In 2014, the Court decided in Burnwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), the exemption to nonprofit religious employers could be expanded.[7] In Burnwell, the Court held that “closely-held for-profit corporations” (here, Hobby Lobby) were exempt “if they had sincere religious objections to... [providing] contraceptive coverage.”[8] Thus, after 2014, both nonprofit and for-profit entities had a way of circumventing contraceptive requirements under the ACA.[9]

Later in 2014, the Supreme Court took up another challenge to the requirement that employers provide health care insurance that included preventative care for women.[10] In Wheaton College v. Burwell, the Court held that it was unnecessary for an entity seeking exemption from providing coverage, to file an accommodation form.[11]Instead, the court determined in Wheaton College, that a notification to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), sufficed in place of filing for an entity to receive the exemption. [12]

Then, in 2017, the Court took up another challenge to ACA rule in Zubik v. Burwell.[13] In Zubik, it was asserted that the submission of notice for exemption “substantially burden[ed] the exercise of... religion,” and thus violated RFRA.[14] However, the Court never answered the question, instead remanding it to a lower court, to determine how to proceed in a way that allowed full healthcare coverage while respecting religious exercise.[15]

Later in 2017, the HHS, under the Trump Administration, widely expanded the eligibility of entities wishing to be exempt from the requirement that health insurance cover contraceptive services.[16]“[T]hese new rules, which the agencies promulgated without issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking or soliciting public comment, expanded the scope of the religious exemption and added a ‘moral’ exemption.”[17]

This expansion was challenged by both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who alleged that the new rules violated the Constitution, federal anti-discrimination law, and the APA.[18] The suit filed was first brought to a district court, which issued a nationwide injunction preventing the new rules from taking effect.[19]The district court sided with the states when issuing the injunction, because it found that the states likely had a viable APA claim, given the lack of notice or public comment when the HHS made the new rules.[20] After being decided favorably for the states, the case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which affirmed the ruling of the district court.[21]

Appealing again, the case was consolidated with Trump v. Pennsylvania, which “present[ed] the same legal question.”[22] This case was Little Sisters, which answered the question of whether “the federal government lawfully exempt[ed] religious objectors from the regulatory requirement to provide health plans that include contraceptive coverage.”[23] The Court reversed the injunction issued by the lower court when it held that the HHS “had the statutory authority to craft... [the expanded religious] exemption, as well as the contemporaneously issued moral exemption.” Further, the Court found that the HHS, even without notification or public comment, had “promulgat[ed]... [the expanded religious and moral] exemptions [without] procedural defects.”

However, both Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, disagreed with the majority of the Court.[24]Justice Ginsburg (joined by Justice Sotomayor), wrote “[D]estructive of the Women’s Health Amendment, this Court leaves women workers to fend for themselves, to seek contraceptive coverage from sources other than their employer’s insurer, and, absent another available source of funding, to pay for contraceptive services out of their own pockets.”[25] Justice Ginsburg penned that the majority decision “endorse[d] ‘the regulatory equivalent of taxing non-adherents to support the faithful’.”[26]

Further, Justice Ginsburg observed that the Majority decision was problematic because it “leaves women two options, neither satisfactory.”[27] The first option is that “women seek contraceptive care from existing government-funded programs.... [which] are not designed to handle an influx of tens of thousands of previously insured women.”[28]The second option left is that women pay “for contraceptive counseling and devices out of their own pockets....[N]otably, however, ‘the most effective contraception is also the most expensive.”[29] As Justice Ginsburg noted, these options will create difficulties for “70,500... [to] 126,400 women of childbearing age... [and] the numbers may be even higher.”[30]

________________________________________________________________

[1]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[2]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[3]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[4]"Affordable Care Act". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[5]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[6]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[7]"Burwell v. Hobby Lobby". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[8]"Burwell v. Hobby Lobby". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[9]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[10]"Wheaton College v. Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[11]"Wheaton College v. Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[12]"Wheaton College v. Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[13]"Zubik v. Burwell". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[14]"Zubik v. Burwell". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[15]"Zubik v. Burwell". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[16]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[17]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[18]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[19]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[20]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[21]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[22]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[23]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[24]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[25]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[26]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[27]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[28]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[29]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

[30]"Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania". Retrieved July 9, 2020.

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atheistforhumanity · 7 years ago

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Breaking News:

Tom Price has formally resigned from his position as the Health and Human Services Secretary. If you have not heard already, Price has been under a large amount of scrutiny for taking extremely costly flights in private plans for work related travel. You may wonder why this is a problem if it was work related. The reason is that he could have easily flown on commercial flights and saved tax payers over a million of dollars. Seriously, we paid hundreds of thousands extra for him to fly in private plans. Even worse, Tom Price is a millionaire and could have afforded to pay for those flights himself. Price offered to pay back a small portion of the money, but it was too little too late.

Not only is it grossly unethical to be so careless about spending tax payer dollars for personal luxury, it looks horrible against Trump’s “clean up the swamp” campaign promise. It is worth pointing out that Trump has been criticized since the start of his presidency for costing tax payers millions of dollars by taking weekend trips to Mar-a-lago. Senator Maggie Hassan criticized Price for making deep cuts to health agencies, but splurging with tax payer money. She said, “there could not be a clearer statement of the Trump administration’s priorities.”

In a live statement on CNN, Trump tried to compare Price’s travel to that of those in the Obama administration, with no details. Fox news has already released a short piece with the title Flight furor: Obama officials also took pricey, non-commercial planes. In their own article they admit that “because of their jobs, these officials were required to take government planes for security and communications purposes.” CNN pointed out that “Price's travel breaks with the precedent set by former President Barack Obama's HHS secretaries Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Kathleen Sebelius, who flew commercially when flying within the US.” I don’t blame anyone for making a legitimate criticism, but it’s clear both Trump and Fox are trying to down play the severity of this unethical behavior by pointing the finger at Democrats instead. This is an extremely played out method used by Fox News.

My Opinion

Unethical spending of tax payer money is a wide spread problem throughout our government and I will not pretend that it only happens under Republicans. I would like to see stronger legislation that both makes such spending difficult and punishes unethical spending under criminal law. What Tom Price did was steal from American tax payers. He purposefully chose options that cost obscene amounts of money for his personal comfort. This is just as bad as Mnuchin’s request to use a government plane for his honeymoon. Mnuchin is of course also a millionaire.

I firmly say that Tom Price and Mnuchin should be in jail for theft of tax payer dollars. I believe that real criminal punishments need to levied against anyone who steals money from tax payers.

America, in both parties, has been far too soft on white collar crime and misconduct of elected officials. The obvious problem is that our elected officials make laws that govern themselves. That is the definition of an ethical conflict of interest, but I won’t go into that now.

Bottom line is that we need to see punishments for these acts. How can we have trust in our officials and our government as a whole if they continue to abuse us and face no consequences?

#politics #tom price #tax money #scandal #news #republicans #trump #conservatives #liberals #democrats #Fox News #ethics #government #america #college students #teens

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plxyboi-blog · 5 years ago

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The Junk Food President Aims to Ruin American Nutrition

New Post has been published on https://healthy4lives.com/the-junk-food-president-aims-to-ruin-american-nutrition/

The Junk Food President Aims to Ruin American Nutrition

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President Trump welcomed the faculty football national champion Clemson Tigers to the White Residence in January with a quick-food items feast served buffet model in the State Eating Room.

Presidents do not immediately compose the nation’s dietary recommendations for Americans, which are up-to-date each five a long time by federal law. However, you question what the 2020 model will suggest, provided how President Trump serves lunch dripping in saturated unwanted fat, grease, and salt to best athletes.

When Trump hosted Clemson University’s national collegiate football title crew in January, the govt was in partial shutdown, so a food could not be catered by White Residence employees. Trump feigned to the crew that potentially initial girl Melania Trump and second girl Karen Pence could have manufactured them “some little, quick salads.” Trump then joked, “I reported you fellas are not into salads.”

Alternatively, Trump requested from the four food items groups that ended up the staples on his 2016 election marketing campaign: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Hen (KFC), pizza, and Diet Coke. He boasted to the Clemson gamers that he requested 1,000 hamburgers. “All-American organizations,” he reported. “Burger King, Wendy’s, and McDonald’s. We have Significant Macs. We have Quarter Pounders with cheese. We have anything that I like, that you like. And I know no subject what we did, there is practically nothing you can have that’s superior than that, suitable?”

There was lots of laughter from the football gamers, potentially to be polite and potentially for the reason that they in fact take in a great deal superior than that on campus. The crew receives significantly extra diet instruction than the regular American, from culinary coaches and an “executive functionality chef.”

In a country exactly where two-thirds of grown ups and a 3rd of youngsters are overweight or overweight, Trump’s banquet truly was not funny. According to the 2015 recommendations that are now in drive, bad diet and absence of exercising are possible connected to preventable continual condition in almost 120 million American grown ups, together with Sort 2 diabetes, heart condition, substantial blood pressure, and most cancers. The direct and oblique prices, in health care care and shed work time, not to point out sheer struggling, run hundreds of billions of pounds.

Everyday Americans, especially the deprived, dwell in a separate universe from Clemson’s functionality cooks. Most dad and mom want to be good quarterbacks for their youngsters, but much too typically they are sacked by an all-out advertising blitz of junk food items, processed food items, and sugary consume organizations. With a quick-food items president as dietitian-in-chief, people distinctive pursuits certainly see their very best opportunity in current memory to undermine the healthiest of science-based mostly recommendations. If they have it their way, the image of the all-American diet will continue to be a Significant Mac, Coke, and fries.

EVEN Beneath THE Public-MINDED Obama administration, the political food items battle in excess of the 2015 recommendations is instructive. With initial girl Michelle Obama advertising and marketing healthy consuming and exercising, lots of general public-health and fitness industry experts hoped for the strongest recommendations science could support. There was important progress on boy or girl diet with the bipartisan Healthy, Hunger-Absolutely free Kids Act of 2010. That act necessary faculty lunch diet to be steady with the dietary recommendations issued by the Departments of Agriculture and Health and fitness and Human Products and services.

Most scientific tests identified that students took to the much healthier offerings, rising usage of entrees, fruits, and veggies and reducing food items squander. The Obama-era USDA reported that among 2008 and 2014, a few million extra students ate faculty breakfast.

The 2015 Nutritional Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) appointed by Health and fitness and Human Products and services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also offered hope. The committee evidently reported Americans “should be inspired and guided to consume dietary patterns that are loaded in veggies, fruit, whole grains, seafood, legumes, and nuts reasonable in low- and non-unwanted fat dairy products and liquor (between grown ups) decrease in crimson and processed meat and low in sugar-sweetened meals and drinks and refined grains.”

The DGAC broke new floor by exclusively stating that extra sugars must be no extra than 10 per cent of daily intake. For emphasis, the committee reported, “Added sugars must be lowered in the diet and not changed with low-calorie sweeteners, but rather with healthy choices, such as water in put of sugar-sweetened drinks.”

Just as groundbreaking, the DGAC immediately linked diet to environmental sustainability, noting that the world wide output of food items accounts for 80 per cent of deforestation, extra than 70 per cent of freshwater use, and up to thirty per cent of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions. “Creative, evidence-based mostly procedures are required to reverse these alarming trends,” the committee reported.

After examining scientific tests all around the globe, the committee identified that “a diet greater in plant-based mostly meals, such as veggies, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and decrease in calories and animal-based mostly meals is extra health and fitness advertising and marketing and is associated with significantly less environmental impression than is the recent U.S. diet.” But at the end of the working day, the advisory committee is only that: advisory.

The moment the DGAC report was submitted to USDA and HHS, lobbyists ate absent at it like carpenter ants to downplay the associations among meat and sustainability as well as soda and obesity.

Karen Perry Stillerman of the Union of Concerned Experts (UCS), wrote that for the duration of the two-calendar year system that made the 2015 recommendations, food items and beverage organizations and trade associations spent extra than $seventy seven million lobbying Congress. Of that, the meat marketplace spent $four.5 million and the soda marketplace spent almost $24 million.

SCORES OF CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS wrote to Vilsack and HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell to say the committee wrongly vilified crimson meat and dismissed the alleged gains of lean meat. They also reported the committee had no business enterprise injecting sustainability into the recommendations. The signatories collectively obtained $3.1 million in contributions from agribusiness, from 2013 as a result of 2014, in accordance to the Centre for Science in the Public Desire.

Republicans responded with an appropriations act that banned sustainability from the recommendations and minimal the scope of funding to “nutritional and dietary facts.” In a push release even just before the act was handed, Vilsack and Burwell capitulated on setting and sustainability.

When the remaining recommendations ended up issued, there was practically nothing distinct about reducing usage of crimson meat and processed meat, which are connected to most cancers, cardiovascular condition, and diabetes. In 2015, the Planet Health and fitness Group labeled processed meat as carcinogenic and crimson meat as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The remaining recommendations did maintain the committee’s recommendation for Americans to decrease extra-sugar intake to 10 per cent of daily calories. But there ended up no concrete, best-line illustrations or explanations in the govt summary.

Buried in the recommendations was this details level: Sugary drinks account for almost fifty percent of extra sugars, and extra sugars account for 270 calories, or extra than thirteen per cent, of calories for each working day. The much too-couple of details on soda disappointed 2015 DGAC members such as Frank Hu of Harvard’s School of Public Health and fitness. Reports overwhelmingly connected sugar-sweetened drinks to obesity, when Facilities for Disorder Command and Avoidance mapping confirmed a crystal clear correlation among soda usage and obesity.

Hu also lamented that the deep-sixing of environmental sustainability was “a massively missed opportunity to teach the general public about the environmental impression of their food items possibilities, and to develop a food items process that is extra sustainable and conducive to the health and fitness of both humans and the world.” Hu immediately blamed “political pressure from Congress and the meat marketplace.” (Disclosure: My spouse is a researcher at the faculty and has co-authored a paper with Hu.)

Sarah Reinhardt, UCS’s direct analyst of food items methods and health and fitness, estimated that if the USDA and HHS published recommendations on processed meat and extra sugar by yourself, it would conserve 3,900 life a calendar year and $1.5 billion in health care prices from colorectal most cancers, and 19,000 life and $16 billion in health and fitness care prices from Sort 2 diabetes. Supporting persons take in plenty of fruit and veggies could have saved one hundred ten,000 extra life and $32 billion in health and fitness prices.

Other estimates depth the recent toll of our politically manipulated malnourishment. A 2017 review by an economist at the federal Company for Health care Investigation and Quality and scientists from Cornell and Lehigh Universities identified that the nation’s share of health and fitness care prices spent on dealing with overweight grown ups rose from twenty.6 per cent in 2005 to 28.2 per cent in 2013. The overall prices to handle grown ups for obesity-connected illnesses rose from $212.four billion in 2005 to $342.2 billion in 2013.

Amid the spiraling all round price of health and fitness care, a 2018 Milken Institute report up-to-date the direct continual-condition prices of obesity and overweight to $480.7 billion in 2016. With further more oblique prices of $1.24 trillion for the reason that of shed economic productivity, the overall continual-condition price of $1.seventy two trillion equals nine.3 per cent of the U.S. gross domestic solution. The report reported combating people trends involves “a societal consensus in favor of healthful consuming and exercising.”

A 2017 review by Tufts College, the College of Cambridge, and Montefiore Medical Centre in New York City estimated that bad diet was associated with almost 320,000 fatalities from heart condition, stroke, or Sort 2 diabetes in 2012. The highest proportions of people fatalities ended up connected to “excess sodium intake, inadequate intake of nuts/seeds, substantial intake of processed meats, and low intake of seafood omega-3 fats.”

Set a further way, the range of American life shed in just just one calendar year involving bad diets exceeds the 291,000 American battle fatalities in Planet War II. A Lancet-commissioned review published before this calendar year reported, “Unhealthy diets pose a better threat to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe intercourse, and liquor, drug, and tobacco use put together.”

The Republican Celebration is literally supported by crimson meat. The meat-processing marketplace has provided seventy nine per cent of its almost $seventeen million in contributions since 1990 to Republican congressional candidates, in accordance to the Centre for Responsive Politics.

In the 2018 election cycle, the best 8 contributors to congressional candidates from the food items and beverage marketplace provided the Countrywide Cafe Association, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, the Countrywide Confectioners Association (the candy lobby), and Bloomin’ Manufacturers, the father or mother enterprise of Outback Steakhouse and various other eating places. Virtually seventy two per cent of the $5 million they gave went to Republican campaigns.

Republicans obtain a hundred per cent of contributions from the father or mother organizations of Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell 97 per cent from Waffle Residence ninety three per cent from the Burger King franchisee association 92 per cent from the KFC franchisee association and sixty six per cent from the American Beverage Association.

We will shortly see if this lopsided support bears fruit (even if fresh fruit is appallingly scarce at most of the earlier mentioned entities) under Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who is making an attempt to roll back nutritional prerequisites for faculty meals. In a bizarre campaign against whole-grain and decrease-sodium meals, he has claimed, “Kids are not consuming the food items, and it is ending up in the trash.” But his have USDA scientists made a report this calendar year that in result debunked his tirades. The report identified the opposite: The extra wholesome the food, the extra well known people meals ended up with students.

THE Method OF ISSUING the 2020 Nutritional Guidelines begins with the twenty-member 2020 Nutritional Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) picked by Perdue and HHS Secretary Alex Azar. The committee was introduced in February. The administration held the entire record of nominees and nominators mystery until finally June when Politico was provided a copy obtained under the Liberty of Information Act by the Medical professionals Committee for Dependable Medicine, which advocates for plant-based mostly diets.

On paper, the committee appears to be balanced, with nine of the twenty members getting been nominated by the American Culture for Nutrition: Barbara Schneeman, a previous U.S. Foods and Drug Administration director of diet and labeling Jamy Ard of Wake Forest College Regan Bailey and Richard Mattes of Purdue College Heather Leidy of the College of Texas Carol Boushey of the College of Hawaii Teresa Davis of Baylor Faculty of Medicine Kathryn Dewey of the College of California, Davis and Sharon Donovan of the College of Illinois.

The mission of the diet modern society is to “improve health and fitness all around the globe as a result of substantial high-quality science based mostly diet know-how, engagement and affect.” But fiscal affect in the firm has been extremely controversial in current a long time, with 32 firms outlined as “sustaining companions,” contributing at the very least $10,000 to the team. The sponsors incorporate Pepsi, Kellogg, General Mills, Mars, Nestle, Mondelez, Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont, Pfizer, the Countrywide Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Sugar Association, and the Countrywide Dairy Council.

Tied for second put in acquiring nominees on to the panel ended up the Grocery Companies Association, customer goods and food items big Unilever, the Worldwide Existence Sciences Institute (ILSI), and the Worldwide Foods Information Council (IFIC) Basis. Each individual claimed a few places (most nominees had several nominations). The American Beverage Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and SNAC Worldwide (the world wide trade association for the snack food items marketplace) every single put two nominees on the committee.

In all, 15 of the twenty advisory committee members have direct marketplace ties or nominations from marketplace-supported groups or glowing general public praise from marketplace-backed groups. It is standard to have this amount of marketplace existence on the nation’s most important food items panel, no matter if the administration is Democratic or Republican, since it has turn out to be more and more more durable to be a food items scientist with no marketplace funding.

According to 2019 USDA details, soon after the early 2000s, general public funding for agricultural study and advancement was place on a hunger diet. Meanwhile, private funding mushroomed to about $12 billon in 2014. The private-to-general public funding disparity had previous U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and previous Foods and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler contacting for a new federal diet institute in a February New York Instances op-ed.

Noting that obesity has turn out to be the best disqualifier for army service, they pointed out that a country that spends $forty billion a calendar year on candy and hundreds of billions of pounds on health and fitness care connected to obesity need to devote extra than the $1.5 billion now spent on studying diet. “Establishing a put to study diet is also critical to keep American competitiveness,” they wrote.

Inspite of Perdue’s pledge “to have gurus on both end of the spectrum, both from the plant-based mostly and the meat-based mostly side of the equation—making recommendations,” lecturers and general public-health and fitness groups with no marketplace connections are in the minority. Purdue and Azar mail an ominous message when SNAC can snag two places on the committee, when the American Public Health and fitness Association is shut out.

Although the pursuits of SNAC, the Grocery Companies, Unilever, or the American Beverage Association are relatively predictable—to safeguard the income of lots of of their harmful or marginally healthy products—the very best comprehension of industry’s net all around researchers arrives as a result of the innocuously named Worldwide Existence Sciences Institute and the Worldwide Foods Information Council Basis.

ILSI promises a quarter of the new DGAC. It nominated the chair of the committee, Barbara Schneeman, the previous Fda official, and the vice chair, Ronald E. Kleinman, the physician-in-chief at Massachusetts General Hospital for Small children. Kleinman is also on the board of trustees of ILSI’s Investigation Basis, when Schneeman is a govt liaison. ILSI also nominated Davis, and Donovan and Bailey are ILSI North The united states scientific advisers.

ILSI North The united states claims it “advances food items basic safety and diet science for the reward of general public health and fitness.” But that assert is gutted by the simple fact that it was created in 1978 by a Coca-Cola govt “to unite the food items industry” in what proved to be manipulation of science and govt health and fitness recommendations for its now extra than a few dozen company members. Most of the earlier mentioned-named sustaining companions of the American Culture for Nutrition are also members of ILSI—plus Hershey, Archer Daniels Midland, Campbell Soup, Kraft Heinz, Red Bull, Keurig Dr Pepper, Ocean Spray, and Welch’s.

Yet another instance of the industry’s manipulation of study is an ILSI-funded review that manufactured its way into the Annals of Interior Medicine in 2017. It reported sugar intake recommendations are based mostly on “low-high-quality evidence” and are therefore “untrustworthy.” And an investigation this calendar year for the British Medical Journal and the Journal of Public Health and fitness Coverage by Susan Greenhalgh of Harvard identified that ILSI aided redirect China’s continual-condition science from a paradigm that targeted on diet to Coke’s narrative—debunked by most general public-health and fitness experts—that blames absence of exercising instead of sugary beverages for obesity. Overweight and obesity in China doubled from twenty.5 per cent of grown ups in 1991 to 42.3 per cent in 2011.

Meanwhile, the journal Globalization and Health and fitness has just published a report on ILSI’s resistance to any general public-health and fitness measures to decrease sugar usage and initiatives to downplay the risks of glyphosate-based mostly pesticides such as Monsanto’s Roundup. Most cancers-stricken plaintiffs who made use of Roundup have started successful multimillion-greenback judgments in the United States.

The report concluded that “ILSI must be regarded as a lobby team and that lecturers and scientists, plan makers, the media, and the general public must watch ILSI’s study as advertising and marketing the pursuits of the food items, beverage, complement and agrichemical industries, when its actions encourage its members’ pursuits and counter healthy general public guidelines.”

Likely marketplace affect will also permeate a new location in the 2020 guidelines��recommendations for expecting lady and youngsters from birth to 24 months. A single big recommendation in these new recommendations must mirror the assistance by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Planet Health and fitness Group, particularly that toddlers ideally must be breastfed their initial 6 months for maximum diet.

But the Trump administration shocked the pediatric globe final calendar year by at initial refusing to signal what must have been a perfunctory United Nations resolution encouraging breastfeeding and urging nations around the world to end “inappropriate marketing of meals for infants and younger youngsters.” The U.S. signed on soon after the language to end inappropriate advertising was taken off.

This go raises the respectable issue that both the Nutritional Guidelines Advisory Committee or the administration will condition the remaining recommendations to someway extol the virtues of company infant formulas. DGAC member Sharon Donovan has been a advisor to infant formulation makers Mead Johnson, Abbott Nutrition, and Pfizer. She has conducted Mead Johnson–funded study and edited informational materials for that enterprise.

Also on the committee is Steven Heymsfield of Louisiana State College, who has served on the scientific advisory board of weight-reduction solution Medifast. It is interesting that USDA and HHS essentially gave two places to food items-alternative experts when a 2015 review by Johns Hopkins College scientists identified that pretty couple of professional weight-reduction plans, with the exception of Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, exhibit very long-term gains. The review identified that any quick-term gains of Optifast and Medifast attenuated soon after 6 months.

And in a further twist, Heymsfield is also the 2018–2019 president of the Weight problems Culture. That modern society offers five members on the DGAC: Heymsfield, Ard, Mattes, Elizabeth Mayer-Davis of the College of North Carolina, and Elsie Taveras of Massachusetts General Hospital.

The Weight problems Culture is previously under fireplace from critics for accepting company funding from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, and getting once staged “engagement councils” with members symbolizing PepsiCo, Monsanto, Nestle, Dr Pepper, Atkins, Mars, and Campbell’s Soup. Past calendar year, Pepsi underwrote a distinctive concern of the society’s study journal titled “Low-Calorie Sweeteners and Weight Administration.” The modern society vigorously denies that marketplace support is linked to its casting question on the efficacy of taxing sugar-sweetened drinks. Taxation has evidently lower tobacco usage, and a federally funded review final calendar year reported soda taxes looked “promising in combating obesity.” The performance would possible depend on the amount of taxation.

And that provides us back to meat, that resource of intensive discussion in 2015. The 2020 panel has various members with meat-marketplace connections. DGAC members Davis and Leidy have recommended or spoken at “Protein Summits” meant “to take a look at the misperception that Americans in excess of-consume protein.” The summits have been sponsored by the Countrywide Pork Board, the Beef Checkoff, the Egg Nutrition Centre, Hillshire Manufacturers, the Dairy Investigation Institute, and the International Dairy System.

Yet another DGAC member, Lydia Bazzano of Tulane, was nominated by Atkins Nutritionals, recognized for its low-carbohydrate, meat-targeted diet.

In a further review funded by the Countrywide Pork Board, Leidy identified very long-term health and fitness gains of pork-based mostly breakfasts in adolescents. The comparison team was low-hanging fruit for improvement—adolescents who skip breakfast. Unabashedly, the Pork Board—which is hardly dashing to look at pork with fruit-based mostly breakfasts—proclaimed “high-high-quality lean pork” to be a “key component of daily healthy consuming.”

Trumping up the health and fitness gains of “the other white meat” is a Trojan horse for the pork marketplace to pig out on sales of bacon. Although the regular American relatives buys fresh pork, such as tenderloin, shoulder roast, or ribs, just 6 periods a calendar year, the range of Americans who consume at the very least a few pounds of bacon a calendar year rose by almost 50 per cent from 2011 to 2018, from 44 million to sixty three million. The Wall Road Journal pointed out in 2017: “With the increase of low-carb substantial-protein diets, fatty bacon manufactured a comeback.”

If the Trump administration lays a major hand on both the committee or the remaining recommendations, there appears little probability for proponents of healthy diets to stage a comeback. UCS has reported on how Perdue has stacked the USDA with executives and lobbyists from the globe of pesticides, corn syrup, and junk food items and sided with Significant Pork in excess of modest farmers and Significant Dairy and other individuals in excess of youngsters in the calming of policies on faculty lunches.

Perdue’s development of an marketplace echo chamber has been so discouraging that staff members at the best study arms of the USDA, the Financial Investigation Provider, and the Countrywide Institute of Foods and Agriculture have quit in large quantities. Beneath the Obama administration, the two businesses jointly utilized seven-hundred persons. That range is reportedly down to 450 amid attempts by Trump to slash ERS funding by fifty percent and Perdue’s strategy to go the ERS and NIFA out of Washington and to USDA’s Kansas City location. That is on best of a go in 2017 to eliminate the USDA’s Centre for Nutrition Coverage and Advertising as a stand-by yourself scientific division and merge it with the Foods and Nutrition Provider. Critics say the go renders CNPP extra vulnerable to marketplace-influenced politics.

Perdue’s assert that he is earning the go to conserve revenue and go researchers nearer to agribusiness “stakeholders” has been assailed by critics who see this go as divorcing USDA researchers and economists from collaboration with people from other cabinet businesses. In a Washington Put up op-ed in June, two previous chief researchers at the USDA, just one under Obama (Catherine Woteki) and the other under George W. Bush (Gale Buchanan), wrote:

Foods and agriculture in the United States deal with perennial worries from a multitude of resources: pests, conditions, droughts, flooding, brutally competitive markets and trade disputes. It is disheartening to consider that the science underpinning these critical contributors to the U.S. economic system, and to the health and fitness and well-becoming of each American, is under threat from the pretty govt section overseeing them.

When chief researchers, significantly just one who served under Bush, are this involved about a deck stacked against their colleagues, just one can only hope that the researchers that Perdue and Azar have picked for the 2020 Nutritional Guidelines Advisory Committee can be objective. The 2015 committee, with big backing at the rear of the scenes by lots of occupation scientists in USDA and HHS who ended up on groups for details examination and diet evidence, undoubtedly exhibited such independence. Irrespective of their marketplace connections, that committee understood that the health and fitness and well-becoming of each American was at stake.

In a country that loses extra persons each calendar year to harmful diets than the overall of American battle fatalities for the duration of Planet War II, the 2015 committee shipped conclusions that marketplace did not want to hear. A diligent 2020 committee will pretty much assuredly deliver conclusions that this individual administration almost certainly does not want to hear. Although serving junk food items to Clemson’s football crew might have been a joke, destroying the nation’s health and fitness is not.

Derrick Jackson is a Prospect board member.

#Nutrition For Weight Loss

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gaywrites · 8 years ago

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We’ll likely get news about the repeal of Obamacare soon, but until then, it looks like Trump is taking action to remove the nondiscrimination protections offered to transgender people under the Affordable Care Act.

Section 1557 of the ACA prohibits healthcare discrimination based on race, skin color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. But an ongoing lawsuit could change whether or not transgender people are actually protected.

The Trump administration decided to pause litigation that began last year, according to a motion filed by the Justice Department on Tuesday. The relevant lawsuit began last year when five states and religiously affiliated health care providers filed a lawsuit against then-Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell.

Last December, a Texas judge stopped HHS from enforcing the nondiscrimination provision relating to gender identity or termination of pregnancy, according to the motion. On Tuesday, the Justice Department said it did not take issue with the rule being on hold. The Department asked that HHS be given time to “reconsider the regulation at issue in this case” and that a judgment motion “may become moot in light of subsequent administrative proceedings.”

In sum, Section 1557 and its ban will stay in place, but the temporary injunction is on the sections of the regulation that implement it, said Sharita Gruberg, associate director of LGBT Research and Communications at the Center for American Progress. (ThinkProgress is an editorially independent news site housed at the Center for American Progress.)

It really just gets worse every day.

#lgbtq #news #trump's america #transgender #health #healthcare #obamacare #politics

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loudlytransparenttrash · 8 years ago

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This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 5

A University of Chicago student organization was pressured into changing the topic for an upcoming debate because some considered it to be “colonialism apologia.” The debate, hosted by the elite school’s “Political Union,” was initially set to ask if “the British Empire was a force for good,” but student outcry merely over the title of the debate eventually resulted in the name-change. “What is wrong with you people?” one student wrote on the group’s Facebook page, with another questioning why “you motherfuckers needed plenty of critical messages to see that ‘was the British Empire a force for good’ is deeply problematic? How many white people are in this RSO?” The organization changed the question of the debate to whether Britain should be forced to “pay reparations to its former colonies,” and apologizing for the way it had initially framed the conversation.

A black University of Pennsylvania student recently declared that his semester at the Ivy League institution was “traumatic” because he had three white professors who refused to acknowledge their white privilege. “Last semester was honestly the worst semester I’ve had at Penn so far. And all because of one thing: the white professors I’ve had at Penn. It appears that the term ‘privilege’ does not apply to them. Nor do they care to learn what it is.” Student James Fisher wrote. "My professor wanted to protect the voices of the white students who benefit from black oppression, the oppression unfortunately continued. It even led to me mentally breaking down in the classroom. With different emotions going through my head from not only this class but from the Trump election, I did not want to step foot into another white space until I made sure that my mental health was restored. The truth is, you as a single person cannot make up for the horrific things that white people have done to us throughout human history. But that does not mean that you do not have the power to stop yourself from oppressing the students that you teach every day.

American University is blocking whites from a cafe designated as a ‘sanctuary’ for nonwhites. As reported in my earlier posts, after black student activists issued a demand list to American University, the administration caved in and agreed to obey. One of the demands was a ban on white students using a new student lounge for the rest of the spring semester. The activists said they would take over the space as their own “sanctuary” and also demanded that all nonwhite students received extensions. They also asked incoming President Sylvia Burwell, to show how she will enforce “no tolerance for anyone creating a hostile environment for students of color” and punish such people.

A shocking new video shows a Western Washington University student screaming for at least two-minutes straight after seeing a Donald Trump sign on campus. The unknown student reacted to a street preacher’s pro-Trump sign by spiraling into a bizarre frenzy, at some points even splattering paint on the ground. Whether it was an attempt at an artistic protest or not, the fact remains: the bitch is bonkers.

The University of California, Irvine’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter once again disrupted and shut down a pro-Israel event, shouting “fuck you” at attendees. The SJP overtook a Students Supporting Israel event featuring Israeli veterans who are touring college campuses to share their firsthand experiences from on the ground. “You people are colonizers or occupiers and you should not be allowed on this fucking campus” they screamed and called Israelis “genocidal.” This is the same group that shut down a film-screening hosted by a Jewish student group on campus last year and as reported earlier, they have also been drinking cups of saltwater to show their solidarity with Palestine terrorists currently being detained in Israel. Nobody ever dares to question the vicious antisemitism inflicted by these students on campuses across the U.S and no one bats an eye when they refuse to condemn Hamas, because they are being funded by this terrorist organization who are hellbent on wiping out every last Jew. No one cares because they’re Muslim and saying anything would be Islamophobia.

A University of Hawaii professor recently claimed that universities should “stop hiring white cis men” until “the problem goes away.” Mathematics professor Piper Harron never gets around to specifying which "problem" would be solved by culling cis white males from academia, but insists that "real solutions require women of color and trans women." Piper Harron suggests, members of the “white cis” demographic should, “as a first step,” resign from their “hiring committee, their curriculum committee, and make sure they’re replaced by a woman of color or trans person.” “Having white cis women run the world is no kind of solution either,” she declares, pointing to the fact 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump. “Stop hiring white cis men (except as needed to get/retain people who are not white cis men) until the problem goes away,” she instructs university officials, adding accusatorially that “if you think this is a bad or un-serious idea, your sexism/racism/transphobia is showing.”

Black professors congratulate graduates who heckled Ed. Secretary Betsy DeVos at commencement. Over 200 black professors have signed a “love letter” to the Bethune-Cookman University graduates who booed DeVos during her commencement speech at the school last week. As mentioned in the last post, one professor alleged DeVos is representative of “white power.” The letter reads: “The world watched you protest the speaker you never should have had. We cheered as we saw so many of you refuse to acquiesce in the face of threats. Your actions fit within a long tradition of Black people fighting back against those who attack our very lives with their anti-Black policies and anglo-normative practices.”

At least DeVos got to talk even though she was still booed and heckled. Texas Southern University withdrew an invitation to Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas to address its graduating students. The university disinvited Cornyn because it wanted students to remember their commencement “positively for years to come,” and that couldn’t happen if a white conservative politician was their speaker. The petition to have Cornyn banned from talking cites his vote in favor of requiring photo ID in federal elections and against continuing federal funding for sanctuary cities who refuse to carry out the law against illegal immigrants. Oddly, it also cites Cornyn’s 2006 vote for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, at a time when same-sex marriage was far more popular with whites than blacks. Then-Sen. Barack Obama opposed same-sex marriage in 2006 as well, and didn’t officially change his position for another six years but hey, only white people can do bad things.

Minority students at the University of Michigan have expressed feeling intimidated by the interior wood paneling found throughout the historic Michigan Union building. Anna Wibbelman, former president of an organization that voices student concerns about university development, stated that “minority students felt marginalized by quiet, imposing masculine paneling” found throughout the 100-year-old building that is set to undergo a massive, $85.2 million renovation project.

A student group at the University of Washington held a teach-in Tuesday to promulgate the notion that America’s “food system is built on racism.” “It is a fact that today inmates, predominantly black Americans, harvest a lot of the food that we eat for less than $.50/hr,” the group explains. Let me get this straight, they want their rapists, pedophiles, wife beaters and murderers inside of prison, but once they’re there, they also want them to be paid and treated under the same conditions as law abiding citizens and if we don’t, it’s racism?

A Bethel University student issued an apology for wearing a Chicago Blackhawks sweatshirt to class after he was told the clothing was “offensive and hurtful.” The controversy unfolded during a class called “Social Perspectives, Human Worth and Social Action,” which delves into themes of culture, power and oppression in America, according to its online description. Student Cody Albrecht, who is from Chicago, came to the class wearing his home team’s apparel, then offered to turn it inside out “after becoming aware of the unease in his classroom because of his sweatshirt.” A week after he wore the sports apparel and after a “reconciliation” with the head of the Social Work department, his teacher and the whole class, Albrecht issued a formal apology.

Black students at the University of California, Los Angeles are demanding $40 million and their own “safe spaces” on campus as compensation for racially insensitive incidents. “Black students at UCLA are consistently made the targets of racist attacks by fellow students, faculty, and administration,” the Afrikan Student Union (ASU) begins. The first item on the list calls for “a physical location on campus to house the Afrikan Student Union Projects,” which would include “meeting/gathering/safe spaces” and be staffed by a director and an office manager who would be responsible for distributing funds allocated to the ASU. In addition, the ASU ultimatum demands a $40 million “endowment” to fund “a comprehensive effort to address the underrepresentation of African-American students, faculty, and staff at our university,” adding that the endowment should also provide financial aid to “dismissed black students.” The list goes on to ask that UCLA “deliver an anti-discrimination policy that assuages discriminatory and offensive behavior,” specifically “culturally insensitive” behavior, in conjunction with implementing mandatory “Cultural Awareness training” for all incoming students, faculty and staff members, and campus police officers. Finally, the ASU is insisting that UCLA provide “guaranteed housing for black students for 4 years, including on- and off-campus housing,” arguing that securing housing is especially difficult for black students due to factors such as “low socio-economic status and difficulties remaining financially stable amidst the rising living costs in Westwood.”

#college

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political-affairs · 10 years ago

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Ebola in US - U.S. President Barack Obama pauses as he talks to U.S. Secretary of Health

U.S. President Barack Obama pauses as he talks next to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell (L) and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Thomas Frieden (R) after meeting with his team coordinating the government's Ebola response in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

#White House #Washington #United States Secretary of Health and Human Services #Tom Frieden #Ebola virus disease #Ebola #Centers for Disease Control and Prevention #Barack Obama

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obvious-labyrinth-blog · 8 years ago

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Part 2(b): Obstruction... Everyone’s Doing It?

Senate Majorities - 111th - 114th Congress

111th Congress (09-10) - Democratic Senate/Democratic House 112th Congress (11-13) - Democratic Senate/Republican House 113th Congress (13-14) - Democratic Senate/Republican House 114th Congress (15-17) - Republican Senate/Republican House

The Obama Administration

First Cabinet • Obama began work on his cabinet quickly after winning the 2008 election, citing a need to act "swiftly and boldly" in the midst of an economic crisis, using vigorous vetting that some called "invasive" in the hopes that his cabinet would not face any unexpected problems… he was not so lucky [1]. Obama had many strong cabinet nominees, but he also tapped a number of nominees that either withdrew or faced extended committee hearings over one thing: taxes.

Obama's first Health and Human Services nominee, Tom Daschle, withdrew his name after it was discovered he owed $140,000 in taxes

The second HHS nominee (and eventual confirmee), Kathleen Sebelius, did not pay $7,000 in income taxes between 2005 and 2007

Timothy Geithner, Treasury nominee, faced comparable tax concerns

Hilda Solis, Labor Secretary nom, faced similar issues when her committee hearings had to be cancelled abruptly in the wake of a report that her husband had, only just the day before, settled tax liens

Bill Richardson, Obama's original pick for Secretary of Commerce, withdrew his name due to an ongoing investigation of possible involvement in trading government contracts in exchange for campaign funding and his second pick, Judd Gregg, withdrew citing ideological differences [3, 4]. Eric Holder, Attorney General nominee, faced criticism for his role in the pardoning of Marc Rich, a financier that left the country to avoid prosecution, and for his views on gun control; despite these concerns, however, he still carried strong bipartisan support and was confirmed with a vote of 75-21 [5, 6, 7]. Kathleen Sebelius faced stiff Republican opposition when she voiced her interest in Obama's government-run insurance plan and would continue to be contentious because of the role she would play in healthcare reform; she was confirmed with a vote of 65-31 [7, 8].

Due largely to the slow down caused by the tax fiasco and a number of candidates withdrawing their names, Obama's first cabinet was not complete until April 2009 - Kathleen Sebelius was the last to be confirmed on 4/28/09 [7]. Despite the set backs, the average number of days it took for his nominees to go from their initial committee hearings to confirmation on the Senate floor was only 11 days (and that includes the outliers of Solis an Sebelius, who took 46 days and 28 days respectively - without their inclusion, the average is 7 days - on par with Bush's first cabinet)[7].

Second Cabinet • Obama's second cabinet was… a different experience altogether. The average number of days it took for Obama's nominees to go from their first committee meeting to their confirmation on the Senate floor was 24 (and that's the average excluding Loretta Lynch, who waited 85 days, and Thomas Perez, who waited 91 days - with their numbers included, the overall average jumps to 34 days) [7]. The majority of nominees in Bush's first and second, as well as Obama's first, cabinet were confirmed via voice vote, but all of the nominees in Obama's second cabinet were confirmed via roll call vote, a more time consuming procedural process and one used most frequently when voting on a controversial matter [9]. Cloture was motioned, and invoked, on 5 of Obama's nominees… and those numbers make you stop and think "wait, what the hell is going on?"

This article would end up being too long if I tried to summarize each of the contested nominees, because they were almost all contentious in some way or another so I'm going to focus on the 5 nominee confirmations that resulted in cloture: Chuck Hagel, Thomas Perez, Loretta Lynch, Slyvia Burwell and Jeh Johnson [7].

Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense nominee, took 26 days from committee to confirmation and his nomination actually faced cloture twice - it failed the first time and passed, invoking cloture, the second time [7]. Hagel, a Republican candidate that had been a Senator himself, faced much opposition: he was accused of being an anti-Semite and anti-LGBT (rumors likely started by conservative-leaning groups that lead an oppositional media campaign against his nomination), he was criticized for his opposition to sanctions on Iran, and he was hammered with questions about Obama's role in Benghazi, despite "[having] had no role in formulating the Obama administration's defense and national security policies" at that point [10, 11, 12].

Thomas Perez was touted, by multiple sources, to be Obama's most liberal cabinet pick yet - Senator Mitch McConnell called him a "crusading ideologue" and he faced criticism for his involvement in "partisan decisions" during his time in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division [13, 14, 15, 16]. During his time at the Civil Rights Division, Perez had "blocked partisan voting schemes, cracked down on police brutality, protected gay and lesbian students from harassment" and addressed racial profiling and Islamophobia… he was also Obama's only Latino candidate for his second cabinet… it's actually not a surprise at all that Perez's nomination was contested: he was highly qualified but many of his policies stood in direct opposition to those of Republicans [14]. He was exactly the nominee that one would have expected Senate backlash for, but that isn't why he is unique - he is unique because he was one of the 7 hotly contested nominees that resulted in the "nuclear option" being narrowly avoided [17]. Perez was allowed to be confirmed, by a vote of 54-46 (along exact party lines, a rare occurrence), as a part of a deal that was struck between Senate Democrats and Republicans to avoid the "nuclear option" [17].

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch's case took 85 days to get from committee to confirmation - but her story didn’t start there: it took 161 days from the time her nomination was introduced to the Senate to her final floor vote. And this all happened after the "nuclear option" had been invoked and changed Senate rules. Senate Republicans had concerns about Lynch and Obama's recently signed immigration EO, fearing she was too supportive of his order and citing the importance of an independent Justice Department [19]. But the strange thing about Loretta Lynch is that there wasn't overwhelming concern over her policies, and she was much more well liked by Republicans than the AG she would replace, Eric Holder - her appointment was simply held hostage by Senate Republicans in a effort to make sure that other matters were addressed [18, 19]. Senate GOP wanted to ensure that there would be a vote on a human trafficking bill that Senate Dems contested contained unnecessary language about abortion and the GOP staunchly refused to bring Lynch's nomination to the floor until the bill had been addressed [18, 19]. Lynch, when her nomination did finally make it to the Senate floor, was confirmed on a 56-43 vote.

Sylvia Burwell, Health and Human Services nominee, was in much the same boat as Loretta Lynch - she was well liked by both sides but contentious not because of her character or policies, but because she would taking Kathleen Sebelius' place as the leader of Obamacare [20, 21]. With the "nuclear option" now in effect, cloture was easily invoked and her nomination was confirmed with a vote of 78-17 [7]. And the same was largely true for Department of Homeland Security nominee, Jeh Johnson, he had Republican support built from his time with the Pentagon and though Senator John McCain felt that Johnson had not been properly vetted or provided solid responses, Johnson was easily confirmed due to the recently changed Senate rules [22, 23, 24].

*as a side note, I want to clarify that these five nominees were not appointed in the order I addressed them above. Hagel was confirmed in 2/2013, Perez in 7/2013, the “nuclear option” was invoked in 11/2013, Johnson was confirmed in 12/2013, Lynch in 4/2014, and Burwell in 6/2014

Recess Appointments • Obama made significantly fewer recess appointments than presidents before him; he appointed less than 40 people while Reagan had made 232 recess appointments and Clinton had made 139 [26, 27]. He faced similar procedural tactics from his 112th Congress as Bush, where Senate remained continuously in session via pro forma sessions to prevent him from making recess appointments [27, 28]. The White House argued that the Senate was not doing any legislative business during these pro forma sessions, arguing that could be defined as a "recess," and Obama said he would not "stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people we were elected to serve" and he pushed through 3 nominees to the National Labor Relations Board anyway, which eventually resulted in a Supreme Court case over the constitutionality of the appointments [27, 28]. The Supreme Court, in a 9-0 ruling, ruled Obama's appointments void because the Senate had not truly been in recess when the appointments were made [27, 29, 30].

No Chill: The “Nuclear Option”

Executive and Judicial Nominations • Like Bush, Obama also faced a great deal of opposition to his judicial nominees. Unlike Bush, there wasn't huge pushback of his nominees for fear of stacking the bench in some kind of political way, but, similar to Loretta Lynch's nomination, it seemed like these potential appointments were often held hostage to make sure that other matters were addressed or because, as some Democratic Senators accused, "[Republicans] are trying to politicize the courts" [31, 32, 33]. The reaction was nearly identical to what had happened while Bush was in office, it was just that the parties had switched - it was now Republicans refusing to hold hearings, drawing out the committee process by withholding blue slips and debating candidates at length and Democrats voicing concern that "the stalling, the delays, the obstruction… were all about something else, some collateral issue" or that Senate Republicans were "politicking at the expense of a functional judicial system" [31, 32, 33].

There were cloture motions on 237 judicial and executive nominees that Obama put forth to the Senate during his tenure [34, 35]. Cloture was successfully invoked on 155 of those nominations, while it was rejected 14 times and withdrawn or vitiated 63 times [34, 35]. While cabinet nominations were admittedly more difficult for the Obama administration than likely any other president in history, it was the fight over judicial/executive nominees that was likely the impetus for the "nuclear option" finally being invoked in 2013 [36]. And even after the "nuclear option" was activated, cloture motions were still brought to over 150 of Obama's nominations. Strangest of all is that 215, or about 90%, of these nominees were eventually confirmed, most of them with bipartisan support… so truly, what was all the fuss about (for comparison, only 63% of Bush's cloture'd nominees were confirmed) [34, 35]?

(For an overall look at Obama's judicial nominees compared to Bush and Clinton, this is a good report.)

Obstruction: It's All Just Politics

*here is a warning that much of this section will likely be tainted with my opinion because there simply is no right answer to the following questions.

So what is obstruction?

When Bush held the White House, there were constantly calls for democrats to end their delays and they responded by saying they would cease the blockade if Republicans would listen to their concerns. And once Obama took office, republicans dug their heels in, blocked as much legislation and as many nominees as they could and said their concerns were not being addressed while democrats pleaded with them to stop, to allow the legislative branch to function properly once again. The language is, funnily, strikingly similar, even when the sides are flipped.

And really the only thing that is hugely noticeable in all the research that I've done for these articles is that the "unprecedented" deadlocks experienced during Bush and Obama's administrations have been growing steadily for a long time. Amid all the calls for sensibility and reason, it seems that our representatives are letting their partisan politics drive their behavior in Congress rather than common sense, an understanding of the law or compromise (and we're not blameless in that, we elected them).

partisan (n, par·ti·san) - a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance <political partisans who see only one side of the problem>

My own cynicism aside, however, I do think it matters how we define obstruction, and how we decide what is good obstruction and what is bad obstruction. I'm inclined to say that when the obstruction reaches levels that effectively brick the United States government, you are likely doing something wrong. But if the obstruction in question doesn't actively harm the American public*, then regardless of which side is doing it (even if it is personally annoying to your own politics), maybe it's okay?

*I know, I know - delay in the government almost always hurts real people. The debate over judiciary nominees may not seem like a huge deal, but it left nominees in limbo for months at a time and it left courts bogged down in too many cases for them to realistically handle

From the definition of obstruction alone, it's all obstruction. Some of it is definitely overreach, but from the perspective of the powers the Senate affords to the minority party, a great deal of it is just the minority using those powers effectively. One would hope that there would be a good reason for making Loretta Lynch wait 161 days to be confirmed as Obama's second AG, but who decides what a good reason is? Republicans supposedly feared the legislation they were most interested in would be dismissed or overlooked if they didn't put up a fight, and as personally irritating as their methods were, I can't say that I blame them for leveraging the powers given to them.

So obstruction… everyone really is doing it. It's the new way… only it's not really all that new.

Part 3 coming soon, with new vocabulary like kleptocracy and kakistocracy... yep, that means we’re talking Donald Trump.

Navigation - Part 1 - Part 2a - Part 2b (this!) - Part 3

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/25/obama.cabinet/index.html?_s=PM:POLITICS

[2] http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/21/nation/na-inaug-congress21

[3] http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/labor/89613-president-obamas-top-10-failed-nominees-and-appointees-sen-demint

[4] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-introduces-commerce-pick-locke/

[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/us/politics/03holder.html?_r=0

[6] http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/07/holder.confirmation/

[7] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yx1i6xEgAZCKg2-moEnqv5lO_9gKg3XqnVcminrll6E/edit#gid=0

[8] http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/01/nation/na-sebelius1

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_vote#United_States

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/14/republicans-senate-block-hagel-nomination

[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/us/politics/hagel-filibuster-defense-senate-confirmation.html?mtrref=www.google.com

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hagel#Criticism_of_the_nomination

[13] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-07-15/news/bs-md-perez-filibuster-20130715_1_perez-confirmation-democrats

[14] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/obamas-new-labor-secretary-will-be-most-progressive-member-his-cabinet

[15] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/10/news/la-labor-secretary-nominee-thomas-perez-20130310

[16] http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-historical-oddity-thomas-perezs

[17] http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/senate-nuclear-option-094259

[18] http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/15/politics/mitch-mcconnell-loretta-lynch-confirmation/

[19] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/loretta-lynchs-long-wait/387874/

[20] http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/208389-senate-confirms-burwell-as-hhs-secretary

[21] http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/11/politics/burwell-hhs/

[22] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/16/nation/la-na-dhs-johnson-20131217

[23] http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/more-functional-senate

[24] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jeh-johnson-confirmed-as-secretary-of-homeland-security/2013/12/16/deb5d64c-669d-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html?utm_term=.6de019e5bd6d

[25] http://thehill.com/homenews/232854-gop-cools-on-loretta-lynch

[26] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/obama-lags-his-predecessors-in-recess-appointments/

[27] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42329.pdf

[28] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-weighs-obamas-recess-appointments/

[29] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/heres-what-the-supreme-courts-recess-appointments-decision-means/373525/

[30] http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-recess-appointments-108347

[31] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/senate-republicans-block-obama-judge-nominations

[32] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/payback-gop-blocks-obama-judge-picks-judiciary-119743

[33] http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-02-15/senate-confirms-cuban-born-judge-11th-circuit

[34] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32878.pdf

[35] https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/cloture_motions/clotureCounts.htm

[36] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?utm_term=.fb624715b65a

#filibuster #cloture #obstruction #republican #gop #democrat #dems #senate #recess appointments #executive #obama

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