EFTA00634957.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bce: jeevacation@gmail.com Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.. 01/22/2017 Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 09:06:55 +0000 Attachments: Al_Green_bio2.docx; Inaugural_address,_President_Donald_Trump'sfull_speech_- _Januaty_20,_2017.docx; Lwill_give_you_everythingtHere_are_282_of_Donald_Tr_ump? s_campaign_promises_Jen_naJohnson_TWP_11.28.16.docx Inline-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png; image(10).png; image(11).png; image(12).png; image(13).png DEAR FRIEND The New Last Mile And it isn't wires Inline image 2 Internet service providers are beginning to test a new technology that has the potential to greatly change how we get Internet access. Twenty years ago one of the go-to words in technology was "the last mile". According to Wikipedia `the last mile' is a colloquial phrase widely used in the telecommunications, cable television and internet industries to refer to the final leg of the telecommunications networks that deliver telecommunication services to retail end-users (customers). More specifically, the last mile refers to the portion of the telecommunications network chain that physically reaches the end-user's premises. EFTA00634957 Examples are the copper wire subscriber lines connecting landline telephones to the local telephone exchange; coaxial cable service drops carrying cable television signals from utility poles to subscribers' homes, and cell towers linking local cell phones to the cellular network. The word "mile" is used metaphorically; the length of the last mile link may be more or less than a mile. Because the last mile of a network to the user is conversely the first mile from the user's premises to the outside world when the user is sending data (sending an email,for example), the term first mile is also alternately used. The last mile is typically the speed bottleneck in communication networks; its bandwidth effectively limits the bandwidth of data that can be delivered to the customer. This is because retail telecommunication networks have the topology of "trees", with relatively few high capacity "trunk" communication channels branching out to feed many final mile "leaves". The final mile links, being the most numerous and thus most expensive part of the system, as well as having to interface with a wide variety of user equipment, are the most difficult to upgrade to new technology. For example, telephone trunk-lines that carry phone calls between switching centers are made of modern optical fiber, but the last mile is typically twisted pair wires, a technology which has essentially remained unchanged for over a century since the original laying of copper phone cables. To resolve, or at least mitigate, the problems involved with attempting to provide enhanced services over the last mile, some firms have been mixing networks for decades. One example is fixed wireless access, where a wireless network is used instead of wires to connect a stationary terminal to the wireline network. Various solutions are being developed which are seen as an alternative to the last mile of standard incumbent local exchange carriers. These include WiMAX and broadband over power lines. Today if you are on the hunt for a new home-Internet provider the one you like seems to offer fast, reliable service, but its footprint ends just short of where you happen to live — and there aren't many other options in your area. Too bad: Looks like you'll be sticking with slow speeds and lackluster customer support while your luckiest neighbors get to surf without interruption. For many Americans, this isn't hypothetical. It's reality. In Tennessee, for example, one city-run provider has spent years fighting to reach people who are literally a tenth-of-a-mile off its network. The reason for delay is somewhat bureaucratic — the answer involves state laws — but the point is that for those would-be customers, a better Internet connection has remained tantalizingly out of reach. Until now, there weren't many ways around this problem. But thanks to a technology some Internet service providers (ISPs) expect to roll out next year, Americans dreaming of better, faster broadband may actually be able to get it. To understand how, let's start with key concepts about how Internet service works. Most residential broadband today runs over cables that are laid in the ground or strung on telephone poles, that then branch off and tunnel directly into your house. Laying these cables is costly, which is why many Internet providers expand slowly — or not at all, if they're worried the returns can't justify the outlays. Cellular Internet is a little different. Cell towers are expensive, too, but they create a one-to-many connection that serves thousands of mobile devices wirelessly — rather than creating a dedicated pipe to a single, fixed destination such as a home or business. The speeds aren't quite as fast on mobile data as what you get with fixed broadband, but for basic Web browsing and video, it's good enough. EFTA00634958 Now, imagine if you could take the convenience of cellular data and combine it with the superfast download speeds associated with fixed, wired broadband. What might that look like? Internet providers such as Verizon and AT&T are beginning to experiment with precisely this idea. Telecom geeks call it "wireless fiber," because it provides a fixed location (again, such as a home or business) with all the capacity of a Google Fiber or Verizon Fios connection but without the need to plug a cable directly into the building. The result may be a much cheaper way for Internet providers to extend their networks. Much like slapping a range extender or WiFi router on your home network, carriers will effectively use wireless fiber as a way to push the boundaries of their service footprints, serving more people at the edges of their territory and densifying their existing coverage areas. For people who live at the borders of an ISP's service area but not within it, this might mean gaining access to another choice of Internet provider. Still, don't expect to buy one of these Internet plans anytime soon: Despite the marketing, analysts say a truly widespread commercial product is about five years off. "You've got to start working this stuff and planning this stuff," said Harold Feld, a senior vice president at the consumer group Public Knowledge, "and it takes a while for the industry to adopt standards. But once they've got them in place, things roll out pretty quickly." Austin may be one of the first markets to get a taste of this technology. AT&T expects to conduct field tests there later this year; it promises ultimately to provide multi-gigabit speeds that represent an orders-of-magnitude improvement over today's typical home Internet services. It's also planning outdoor trials in Middletown, N.J. The company has said users of wireless fiber can expect speeds that are 5o to 100 times greater than what mobile users currently get on 4G LTE. Google also appears to be getting on board. The company has asked the government for permission to experiment with high-frequency airwaves as part of its Google Fiber project — potentially paving the way for Google to offer fast wireless broadband. Verizon plans to conduct its own tests, too, in and around its facilities in South Plainfield, N.J., Framingham, Mass., and Euless, Tex. It's even going so far as to rent out entire apartments and filling them with HD televisions and other electronics, the better to simulate performance in an actual household. "If you're going to kick the tires on a technological revolution, you want to put it into a real-world scenario as fast as you can," said Adam Koeppe, Verizon's vice president of network technology planning. While Koeppe declined to say whether the economics of wireless fiber would let Verizon keep growing its Fios network — the company said in 2010 that it would stop building more of it — he did say consumers should expect Verizon to provide the technology in areas outside its existing Fios footprint. So True Growth Through Adversity EFTA00634959  Inline image 1 Web Link: https://w ii.facebook.com/ParmoiOfficial/videos/1302954596417010/ * ** * ** It Isn't Going To Be Easy Republicans just passed legislation that makes it easier to repeal and replace Obamacare ;°' Inline image 1 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.), House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), and Vice President-elect Mike Pence listen to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) during a Jan. 4 Republican press conference on Capitol Hill. House GOP lawmakers were set to vote Friday to start the process of rolling back the Affordable Care Act. EFTA00634960 A week ago, the Senate stayed in session until almost 2 a.m. solely for the purpose of adding $9 trillion dollars to the federal debt ceiling and to take the first steps towards killing the popular Affordable Care Act, which millions of people rely on for their health insurance. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MASS) and Al Franken (D-MN) both spoke out as they voted against the Senate's move in the middle of the night to gut the health care law. With Republicans having spent the last six years doing as little as humanly possible in Congress and repeatedly shutting down the government because they claim that our federal budget deficit is too high, this sprint to add $9 trillion to the federal debt ceiling is beyond hypocrisy. With mounting skepticism by both Democrats and Republicans to Congress' ability to easily replace the Affordable Care Act, Republican leadership tried to suggest that the vote wasn't just about Obamacare, but what's called a Senate Budget Resolution — think of it as a broad outline of how to manage all government spending. Senate Republicans, therefore, agreed on this broad outline of "medicine" for America's financial health; double our annual deficits and raise the debt ceiling by $9 trillion dollars. Yes, that's the same debt ceiling which was previously deemed too high to ever raise as long as President Obama was in office, necessitating years of Republican-led government shutdowns. Of course, that's not all the Republicans voted against last night in the Senate. Democrats introduced amendment measure after measure, aimed at protecting Americans from corporate special interests, but eventually could not overcome the Republican majority. While the Republicans: • blocked an amendment that would have protected people with pre-existing conditions • blocked an amendment that makes it easier for young people to stay on their parent's plans until they are 26 • blocked an amendment allowing contraception to be covered under health insurance • blocked an amendment protecting the expansion of Medicaid • blocked an amendment that would make it easier for children to be covered under Medicare/CHIP • blocked an amendment that would make it harder to keep veterans from getting coverage from the VA Senator Bernie Sanders (I -VT) introduced a comprehensive amendment to make Senate Republicans hold their President-elect Donald Trump to his word and not touch the social safety net. It failed 49- 49 on a mostly party line vote with only Maine Senator Susan Collins joining the Democrats. The reality is that Republicans only have to votes in the Senate to gut the tax and spend provisions of the law, but not the items that require insurers to cover all parties and other key parts of Obamacare. Nonetheless, gutting the financial aspects of the law could lead to big problems like a mandate for coverage, but no more subsidies to help millions of working Americans to pay for their healthcare. Even worse, it's not like you can remove the ACA and continue to have a functioning healthcare system, so it's not just about 20 million people on the program's medicare expansion and 6 million people using market-based programs. EFTA00634961 Killing Obamacare altogether would dry up funding to hospitals and emergency rooms in every state in America, since the landmark legislation got rid of a patchwork of outdated regulations which were costing taxpayers a literal fortune. That's probably why Senate Republicans decided to work into the wee hours of the night, and when Democrats finally got a chance to say something — calling out the reasons for their votes — the meeting's GOP chair tried to drown out their voices, lest the world listen to their shame. As Republicans are planning to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies are warning the public of the tragedy that awaits once Obamacare is dismantled. This so-called `resolution' which Republicans proclaim is the best way to "take a chunk out of the federal budget deficit is to defund Obamacare with no replacement plan lined up shows a negligence that is unnerving to many. As a result a number of insurance companies are completely fed up with the GOP, and do not find it rational nor beneficial for Americans, to completely wipe out Obamacare. Here is why: "Obamacare has plenty of critics, but scrapping it in its entirety is rash and will benefit few— particularly not the over 20 million people who didn't have healthcare coverage before it was enacted. But what seems to be in the process of happening now — cutting off the programs' money without changing the underlying regulations — is kind of even worse. For all the talk of how they'd benefit from a truly free market, not even health insurance companies make out well on this one. No business likes an unstable market, and Republican lawmakers are in the process of creating just that: a sudden lack of subsidies could cause some healthy customers to opt out, leading to an insurance landscape flooded with (high-risk) sick people staggering under the burden of increased premiums. Advantage, nobody." So, what would exactly happen if Congress decides to repeal and replace? It all depends on what the actual replacement plan is—which President-elect Trump has failed to mention. Apart from that, this not an ideal situation for insurance companies, or insurers themselves. A top-ranked health economist explain this perfectly: "If they remove the subsidies and lower the individual mandate tax penalty to zero, it could lead the individual market to unravel," Dow says. Why? It could lead to high rates of what experts call adverse selection, which basically amounts to having more sick people in your pool than healthy ones. "When the pool is less healthy, the premium is higher," says Paul Ginsburg, a health economist at USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy and Brookings. Under Obamacare, the insurance mandate and subsidized lower premiums kept healthy people on the wagon. If Obamacare's replacement doesn't deal with the adverse selection problem, insurers will have to raise their premiums to cover the risk posed by having a higher proportion of sicker, costlier people. "Healthy people will drop out," Ginsburg says. "This is going to do an amazing amount of collateral damage." Now that Republicans have completed step one of their three-step plan to kill Obamacare, it may evidently, create more harm than good. Insurance companies are equally hesitant of the risk EFTA00634962 Republicans are about to take. For now, the GOP is prompting an easy solution: Don't get sick because you're screwed. And as Dow puts it: "The overall losers here are the sick people." Donald Trump has campaigned to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare, once he gets into office. Now that he's won the presidency and will assume the office with a majority Republican House and Senate, he has to do something except that feat might not prove to be too easy. Because according to the latest estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services, the resulting jumble is likely to have an unpredictable and messy effect on the insurance marketplace, jeopardizing the health coverage of the 20 million people who have gained it under Obamacare. And although, the President-elect Donald Trump has promised to keep the more popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act, gutting its funding will result in it collapsing or causing economic unfunded consequence adding to the National Debt. Think, President George W Bush's Medicaid prescription bill, which initial estimated cost doubled to more than $1 trillion during its first decade. Since June 2009 — before the Affordable Care Act even became law — congressional Republicans have promised to be weeks away from proposing their own blueprint for health-care reform. More than seven years later, there is little consensus among Republicans on any plan to replace the ACA. The current Republican strategy has been dubbed "repeal and delay." The Republican Congress has passed legislation that could eliminate major pieces of the law within a matter of weeks. But party leaders understand that if the rollbacks goes into effect there will be a tremendous blowback by voters. In the meantime, Republicans promise, they'll pass a replacement—"something terrific," to quote Donald Trump. ****** Is This Draining The Swamps Why gutting our independent ethic offices is such a mistake ;`' Inline image 1 The head of the Office of Government Ethics issued a stem and unusually public rebuke of President-elect Donald Trump's business separation plans. Now House Republicans are summoning him to answer questions about it. EFTA00634963 Like many Americans I had never really noticed the United States Office of Government Ethics, (OGE), which was created by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, OGE separated from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 1989 pursuant to reform legislation. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 is a United States federal law that was passed in the wake of the Nixon Watergate scandal and the Saturday Night Massacre. It created mandatory, public disclosure of financial and employment history of public officials and their immediate family. It also created restrictions on lobbying efforts by public officials for a set period after leaving public office. Last, it created the U.S. Office of Independent Counsel, tasked with investigating government officials. AGAIN: The United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is an independent agency within the executive branch of the U.S. Federal Government which is responsible for directing executive branch policies relating to the prevention of conflicts of interest on the part of Federal executive branch officers and employees. Primary duties include the following: • Establishing the executive branch standards of conduct; • Issuing rules and regulations interpreting the criminal conflict of interest restrictions; • Establishing the framework for the public and confidential financial disclosure systems for executive branch employees; • Developing training and education programs for use by executive branch ethics officials and employees; • Ensuring that individual agency ethics programs are functioning properly by setting the requirements for them, supporting them, and reviewing them. The Director of OGE is appointed by the President after confirmation by the U.S. Senate. The Director of OGE serves a five-year term, thereby overlapping presidential terms, and is subject to no term limit. The rest of the OGE employees are career civil servants. The OGE's Mission Statement says: • Vision — To achieve a high level of public confidence in the integrity of executive branch programs and operations. • Mission — Provide overall leadership and oversight of the executive branch ethics program designed to prevent and resolve conflicts of interest. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics oversees the executive branch ethics program and works with a community of ethics practitioners made up of over 4,50o ethics officials in more than 13o agencies to implement that program. When government decisions are made free from conflicts of interest, the public can have greater confidence in the integrity of executive branch programs and operations. To fulfill its mission, OGE: • Advances a strong, uniform executive branch ethics program by interpreting and advising on ethics laws, policies, and program management; holding executive branch agencies accountable for carrying out an effective ethics program; contributing to the professional development of ethics officials; and modernizing and implementing the ethics rules and regulations. Learn More • Contributes to the continuity of senior leadership in the executive branch by providing assistance to the President and the Senate in the Senate confirmation process for Presidential nominees; promoting leadership support of the ethics program; and supporting succession planning in the ethics community. Learn More EFTA00634964  • Promotes transparency of the executive branch ethics program by raising the visibility of the ethics program and OGE, and by ensuring that ethics information is publicly available. OGE's mission is one of prevention. OGE does not adjudicate complaints, investigate matters within the jurisdiction of Inspectors General and other authorities, or prosecute ethics violations. OGE is the supervising ethics office for the executive branch ethics program and has no jurisdiction over the ethics programs of the legislative or judicial branches of the federal government or state or local government ethics programs. As such the OGE's primary responsible is to prevent conflicts of interest in the executive branch. Problems began when the Trump transition team did not pre-clear any of its selections for Cabinet positions with OGE before announcing them over the past two months. And things only got worse when Walter Shaub Jr., Director of the OGE rebuked Trump for breaking with precedent and refused to put his assets in a blind trust, instead of putting them into a trust that will be run by his two sons. Shaub responded by saying that this was totally inadequate to protect Trump from conflict of interest. For two weeks now, the majority leadership in the new Congress and the incoming Trump administration have been conducting a war on ethics. This has ranged from the effort to cripple the Office of Congressional Ethics to the Senate's rush to confirm President-elect Donald Trump's nominees before their financial conflicts disclosures were complete to Trump's own inadequate plan to address his ethical problems. On January 2, 2017 House Republicans on Monday voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups. Even Donald Trump in a tweet, asked House Republicans if this was the best use of their time. The latest front involves the Office of Government Ethics and its director, Walter Shaub Jr., who has had the temerity to speak up against Trump's plan to deal with his conflicts of interest as "meaningless." The non-partisan ethics office rarely steps into the spotlight as they usually work behind the scenes when advising administrations. Richard Painter and Norman Eisen, both former ethics counsels for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively, have worked with Shaub and say that he is a career public servant who, in their experience, provided nonpartisan and wise advice. Now, Shaub is being pilloried — and may be at risk of losing his job — for doing just that, and asserting correctly that Trump's approach "doesn't meet the standards ... that every president in the last four decades has met." How does the Trump plan fall short? The president-elect asserted that the conflicts laws don't apply to him but ignored the most fundamental one of all: the constitutional rule that presidents may not accept cash and other benefits — "emoluments" — from foreign governments. Trump's lawyer then offered a porous and insufficient plan to address this problem: The Trump Organization will donate profits from foreign governments' use of his hotels. But why only hotels? What about foreign sovereign payments to buy his condos or apartments, for use of his office buildings or his golf courses, not to mention his massive foreign government bank loans, and other benefits? EFTA00634965 And why only profits, when the Justice Department has long held that the emoluments clause covers any revenue from foreign governments — not simply profits? For speaking up about the shortcomings of this plan, Shaub found himself in the Republican crosshairs. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that has jurisdiction over the White House, demanded Shaub appear for a Star Chamber- style recorded inquisition and implicitly threatened to shut down the Office of Government Ethics if Shaub did not submit. Chaffetz ought to have been doing the exact opposite, supporting OGE and demanding documents from Trump about any financial ties to Russia or other foreign governments. Then, just when we thought it couldn't get worse, it did. The incoming White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, went on national television to threaten Shaub. In a scene like something out of a gangster B-movie, Priebus warned the director that "he ought to be careful " and gave his blessing to Chaffetz's interrogation. Priebus's glare of menace was unmistakable. The only thing he left out was cracking his knuckles. Priebus went on to make assertions about Shaub that were false. For example, he claimed Shaub was "political" because he "may have ... publicly supported Hillary Clinton," which is simply untrue. Shaub has done no such thing. (Before becoming director, Shaub made modest political donations, as did his Republican predecessor, which is their First Amendment right.) Priebus also attacked Shaub's competence, and so his livelihood, questioning "what this person at Government Ethics, what sort of standing he has any more in giving these opinions." In fact, the director is a dedicated and talented ethicist who has served Democratic and Republican presidents alike with distinction and without controversy for many years. He has already approved 54 percent of the Trump nominees who have submitted their paperwork to OGE, compared with just 29 percent at this point in the Obama transition eight years ago. As a former OGE Director said, "If the White House chief of staff had made these kinds of threats against the head of OGE when we were serving in the White House, we would have resigned immediately." For an Administration that rode the wave of voter anger, one has to wonder why the department of ethics for both Congress and the White House are being so vitriolically attacked by the same people who promised "to "drain the swamps." As such, Republicans should back off of their threats. And critics like Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), should instead publicly affirm the need for the agency and invite Shaub to have a public conversation about that and about Trump's conflicts with both the majority and minority members of the committee. Even if you are a Trump supporter and trust this Republican Congress, do you really want change this precedent that future less trustworthy politicians might use these same loophole to obfuscate the rules for nefarious purposes? To President Trump and my Republican friends, oversight is not always about you. As the letter of the law is not nearly as important at the spirit of the law. Most important is that when we destroy a precedent that was created to protect the President as well as the ordinary American citizen just for immediate convenience, we make a grave mistake because laws and regulations may be inconvenient, but most are there to protect the greater good, now and in the future... And for any President who wants to protect America, promoting and protecting our ethics, is a good place to start. EFTA00634966  Our 45111 President — Donald J. Trump Inline image 1 Whether you voted for him or not, Donald J. Trump is now our 45th President. Our new president has been anticipated with much raw enthusiasm on one side and such fear and loathing on the other, especially those of us who believe like Robert Reich who said in his podcast on January 19, 2017 that he rode the wave "of racism, misogyny and xenophobia using the economic anxieties and fears of a downwardly mobile working class to as a vehicle to promote himself." As a result many people, particularly in the white working class now believe that now President Trump is going to be their emissary and spokesman and more importantly their vehicle for changing their fortunes. And for these faithful, President Donald Trump in his inaugural address hit all of the right buttons. And for people like me who voted for someone else, he hit a number of the right buttons for many of us as well,but as the Women's March protests across the country yesterday showed, Donald J. Trump enters the Presidency as the most unpopular President ever. Please feel free to download his inaugural address that is attached to this week's offerings. Much of President Trump's speech was a strong rebuke of the political establishment much of which surrounded him as he spoke. Starting with his promise to transfer power from Washington, DC back to "you the people." "For too long, [those in politics] have reaped the rewards of government while people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories dosed." This line dearly speaks to how many people feel, but in reality there are more people employed in the United States in January 2017 than at any previous time in American history, and inflation-adjusted wages are higher than they have ever been. Trump hit some of his familiar themes. "Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories, scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge." The problem here is that Trump often paints a blighted picture of poverty in "inner cities," but there are more poor people in American suburbs than in urban centers. And to many of his critics, Trump's proposed policies are far more likely to worsen poverty, including among children, than improve it. EFTA00634967 Our new President made a lot of promises. "We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation" is definitely a promise that I and many Progressives can support. The President promised to stop subsidizing "the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military." When the reality is that under the Obama administration, the Pentagon's budget and the size of the armed forces have both shrunk, but many of those cuts came because of Republican-mandated spending limits, while others were the natural result of Obama winding down the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And let's remember, the biggest recipient of military aid is Israel, and President Trump has promised to increase it. The President again promised, "Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. I will fight for you with every breath in my body. And I will never ever let you down." But do we really want to start a trade war with China, Japan and the Europeans, especially when only a relatively small number of Americans work in manufacturing, and many of those who do work in manufacturing sectors like airplanes and capital goods where the United States is a net exporter? And tariffs would actually hurt Americans who buy Volkswagens, BMWs, cheap televisions and iPhones. Overall our new President painted the country much bleaker then it actually is, yes parts of the country are still underwater economically, but the truth is that unemployment is only 4.7% with 75 straight months of job growth, wages are up, our financial markets are at all-time highs, housing markets has fully rebounded with car sales are at historic highs and the dollar is the strongest currency on the planet. But at least he didn't claim to be the only person to be able to save the nation. Yes the speech of economic populism was seen as red meat to the faithful but because so much of the speech was about jobs, and slamming our do nothing Congress may resonate with many other. But the speech did little to reach across the aisle to mend the wounds/divisions and try to heal the nation. As Eugene Robinson wrote in the Washington Post on Friday, "President Trump is a 70-year-old business executive and self-promoter extraordinaire whose lifelong working habit is to go to his office, see what opportunities the day presents and then improvise. He is not going to change. He has no experience in government, the military or any kind of public service. In his whole career, he has worked only for his father and himself. Now he has 32o million bosses, and each of us has the right to tell him what to do. I believe this will be a difficult concept for him to grasp. Trump lies all the time. All presidents have stretched the truth occasionally, of course, and some of them lied frequently and convincingly. But I cannot recall any other public figure, let alone any president, who's every utterance needed fact-checking the way Trump's words do. In "The Art of the Deal,"Trump calls his rhetorical method "truthful hyperbole." But there is no such thing." "The new president remains appallingly ignorant about much of the nation he will lead. He must have learned something on the campaign trail, but he seems unaware that most African Americans are middle-class, or that most Mexican immigrants are hardworking and law-abiding — or, judging from his Cabinet picks, that most billionaires are as out-of-touch as he is." And finally, Trump's deep insecurity may be the most frightening thing of all. A leader has to be confident enough to let slights and insults pass; by being big, he makes his adversaries look small. Trump has what can only be called a pathological need to respond to any criticism with overkill — and if you try to swat flies with a sledgehammer, a lot of the furniture gets broken. When he is flailing away at someone like Rep. John EFTA00634968 Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon, Trump risks only his dignity. But what happens if he feels dissed by someone like President Xi Jinping of China, or by Trump's Russian soul mate, Vladimir Putin? The risk is to all of us, and it is incalculable." During the primaries, President Trump made more than 282 promises, according to journalist Jenna Johnson. They range from the sublime to the ridiculous and often delivered with the panache of a caravel barker, so even his most ardent supporters realize that many of these promises are more about theater than policy. Unlike the Congressional Republicans in 2009 whose number one objective was to undermine (the new) President Obama, I believe that we Progressives should try to work with President Trump especially in areas such as infrastructure and encourage him to keep the Affordable Care Act in intact,bas well as protect the rights of women, gay and lesbians, the elderly and our precious children. And I am not talking about tax vouchers which are shams, as they will evaporate in a nanosecond should one have cancer, lung disease or need a serious medical operation. Mr. President you promised a lot and no one expects you to deliver all of them, but if you follow your predecessor's credo, to not do stupid shit, and make every decision with thought and compassion you might deliver more than your 37% approval number today would suggest.... And this is my rant of the week.... WEEK's READINGS Diabetes is no longer a rich-world disease EFTA00634969  Inline image 1 EVERY six seconds a person somewhere in the world dies as a consequence of diabetes, according to estimates by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). In 2015 5m lives were lost to the disease, more than were claimed by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Moreover, the toll is rising faster than forecasters have expected. Nearly half of these deaths are among people younger than 60. In parts of Africa, where the condition is much less likely to be diagnosed, that share is more than four- fifths. The rise of diabetes has been misjudged repeatedly. In 1995 the World Health Organization estimated that 1.35m 20- to 79-year-olds had diabetes, and that this figure would more than double in three decades. But reality outpaced this stark projection by a huge margin: just twelve years later the number of people with diabetes had already nearly doubled. Since then, the rise of diabetes has been so steep that prevalence closed in on projections even faster. In 2015, the estimated global prevalence had reached 8.8%, nearly double that in 1995. By 2040, the IDF reckons that a tenth of humanity will have the condition. Already, diabetes gobbles up 12% of health spending globally; in some countries, the share is as much as a fifth. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are increasing rapidly. The factors contributing to type 2 are well known; poor diets, urbanization and low physical activity increase susceptibility. It is no surprise that type 2 accounts for 90% of cases in high-income countries. But type 1 diabetes, which is fatal unless treated with daily insulin medication, is also rising at about 3% a year. The reasons are unclear, but the data leave no doubt that diabetes is no longer exclusively a rich-world disease. The Economist — November 14, 2016 ****** 10 Mind-Boggling Facts About Canada EFTA00634970  R, Inline image 1 You might know a lot about your hometown or favorite city, but these surprising stats about Canada will make you look at our beautiful country in a whole new way. Cold as Mars If you've ever had to chisel your car out of a block of ice on your way to work or wear a thermal nose- warmer, you know Canada can get pretty cold in the winter. The average low for the month of January in Ottawa, Ont. is -14.4 C (6.1 F). That's pretty cold. However, a temperature recorded in 1947 in Snag, Yukon makes the rest of Canada's winter weather seem like a beach vacation. A temperature of -63 C (-81.4 F) was recorded in the small village of Snag on Feb. 3, 1947. That's roughly the same temperature as the surface of Mars. Three Million Lakes Canada has a lot of great things in abundance, like hockey players, parkas and Tim Hortons franchises. But did you know we also have more lake area than every other country in the world? It's true. The Great White North has 563 lakes larger than 100 square ldlometres. The Great Lakes alone contain about 18 per cent of the world's fresh lake water. That's a lot of water. Makes you wonder if all of our country's allies are actually just thirsty. Bigger Than the European Union Ever had someone ask you if you know Joan from Vancouver or Paul from Toronto when you told them you were from St. John's? The vastness of our great country seems to be a little known secret to outsiders. Here are some facts to put Canada's size in perspective: It's bigger than the entire European EFTA00634971 Union (33 times bigger than Italy and 15 times bigger than France), more than 3o per cent larger than Australia, five times as big as Mexico, three times as big as India and about the same size as 81,975 Walt Disney Worlds put together. So, in other words, no, you don't know Joan or Paul. Northernmost Settlement At the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, just 817 kilometres from the North Pole, you'll find the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world: Alert, Nunavut. It might not have malls or movie theatres but Alert is the temporary home to military and scientific personnel working in the area. The temporary home part will make sense once you see how cold this place gets: the wannest month, July, has a balmy average temperature of 3.4 C (38.1 F). By January, the coldest month, the mean temperature has plunged to -32.19 C (-26 F). No wonder they named it Alert. The Longest Coastline If you walked and walked and never stopped - not to eat, not to rest your feet, not to get some sleep- it would take you four and a half years to walk the length of Canada's coastline. While our country might not conjure up images of blue waters and white sandy beaches, Canada has the world's longest coastline, bordered on three sides by three different oceans: the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific. To put that in perspective, Canada has 202,080 of the world's total 356,00o kilometres of oceanfront property. The only other country that even comes close is Indonesia, which has 54,716 km of coastline. io% of the World's Forests Sure, everyone knows we have a lot of trees but did you know that Canada actually has 3o per cent of the world's boreal forest and to per cent of the world's total forest cover? An incredible 396.9 million hectares of forest and other wooded land can be found across the country — about 68 per cent of Canada's forests are coniferous. The best part of all? Most of Canada's forest land is publicly owned. The Only Walled City in North America Quebec City has a special feature that makes it unique in Canada (and the U.S., for that matter): it has walls. No, really, Quebec City is the only city north of Mexico that still has fortified walls — known as the Fortifications of Quebec. First the French and later the English built up Quebec City's fortifications between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Quebec's entire historic district, including the ramparts, has since been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The Most Bitumen EFTA00634972 It's thick, it's sticky and Canada has an estimated 176.8 billion recoverable barrels of it. That's right, crude bitumen — a semi-solid source of petroleum — is available in abundance in Canada's oil sands. There's an estimated 249.67 billion accessible barrels of the black stuff in the world and Canada has about 70.8 per cent of it - four times more than Kazakhstan and six times more than Russia. National Parks Bigger Than Countries Canada is so big that even our parks are bigger than countries. Just look at Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories: not only is it a sight to behold with massive waterfalls, it's also an incredible 30,050 square kilometres — bigger than Albania and Israel. Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta and the Northwest Territories is even bigger at 44,807 square kilometres, which makes it bigger than Denmark and Switzerland. North America's Strongest Current Get out your lifejacket and be ready for the swim of your life if you ever visit Seymour Narrows in British Columbia. The stretch of the Discovery Passage has some of the strongest tidal currents ever measured with flood speeds of 17 km/h and ebb speeds of i8 km/h. Daniel Reid — Our Canada 6?, Inline Image 2 EFTA00634973 In January, (2016), journalist Jenna Johnson compiled a list of 76 campaign promises Trump had made. By late November, the list has grown to 282, collected from Trump's speeches, public comments, tweets and campaign and transition websites. Due to limited space and the fact that many of you say that my weekend readings are already too long, here is a brief overview and attached please find the complete list. Watch 50 Trump promises in 2 minutes Inline image 1 Web Link: Itttps://voutu.be/jwREhxRpbAe JOBS 1. Create at least 25 million jobs and "be the greatest jobs president that God ever created." 2. Bring back manufacturing jobs from China, Mexico, Japan and elsewhere. States that can expect a rush of jobs include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, New York and Virginia. APPROACH TO THE PRESIDENCY 16. "I'm going to be so presidential, you're going to be so bored." He might also quit tweeting. 17. "I refuse to be politically correct." i8. "My only special interest is you, the American people," not major donors, the party or corporations. TAXES 27. Release his tax returns as soon as an Internal Revenue Service audit is complete. EFTA00634974 28. Pass the Middle Class Tax Relief and Simplification Act, which will reduce the number of tax brackets from seven to four and lower income taxes for all. The highest earners would pay a 25 percent tax. Individuals earning less than $25,000 per year or couples earning less than $5o,000 would not be charged income tax, although they would have to file a one-page form with the IRS that states: "I win." 29. Lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent and get rid of most corporate tax loopholes or incentives. Allow corporations a one-time window to transfer money being held overseas, charging a much-reduced to percent tax. ECONOMY AND FEDERAL BUDGET 38. "We will double our growth and have the strongest economy anywhere in the world." Grow the nation's economy by at least 4 percent per year, although Trump has also suggested he will boost growth to at least 6 percent per year — if not much higher. 39• Eliminate the $19 trillion national debt within eight years by "vigorously eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, ending redundant government programs and growing the economy to increase tax revenues." 40. Never default on this debt, as the United States can "print the money" or renegotiate the amount owed with creditors, as the self-described "king of debt" has done with his private businesses. REGULATION 5o. Issue a moratorium on new federal regulations that are not compelled by Congress or public safety. For every new regulation that is added, two existing regulations must be eliminated. And those new regulations must pass this test: Is this regulation good for the American worker? 51. Order agency and department heads to identify all "needless job-killing regulations" and then remove them. HEALTH CARE 52. "Completely repeal" the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something "terrific"