This week's selections: net neutrality; post-Mosul; the New Hour on PBS; Chinese and North Korea in Africa; your taxes; an immigrant's success story; infamous date this past week; Liu Xiaobo's funeral at sea; a "which" hunt, of course; coal and bourbon; finally, delay, yet again.

Net Neutrality. Nerds Arise! Ready your smartphones! Here is one take on this obscure legislative contention from "The [Capitol] Hill" tip-sheet. "[Last] Wednesday, companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon, along with lawmakers and other tech groups, will stage a net neutrality “Day of Action” aimed at stopping FCC Chairman Ajit Pai from scrapping the net neutrality rules approved by the agency in 2015." The rules were formally known as the Open Internet Order of 2015.  Link here

Post-Mosul. David Ignatius thinks there are important lessons to be learned as this ISIS stronghold falls, lessons that will help as the fighting moves on to Raqqa,, Syria.

PBS, health care and Putin's Russia. This past week both topics were covered on PBS.
     On health care, there were two segments, one from the western panhandle of VA, the other from WV. VA was one of the states that opted not to expand its medicaid, while WV opted to expand its coverage. These two segments feature thoughts/concerns by both clinical medical staff providers and patients who receive medicaid. Interestingly, one WV clinic lies in a county that voted 83% for Donald Trump. Obvious patient/supporters were very worried about what would happen if Congress were to pass and the President signed a bill cutting their medicaid benefits. Here are the links: VA link and WV link
     On Putin's Russia. The News Hour had a six-part series about various facets of Vladimir Putin's Russia, reported by special correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin report in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. After all, given that Russia remains our most potentially destructive opponent, the series is well worth watching. There are, in my estimation, interesting similarities between Putin and Trump.
     On the Russian side. Americans are largely unaware of the immense psychological damage, national and personal, that accompanied the collapse of the USSR: constituent republics fell away, international organizations were restructured, the Russian economy was deeply depressed, virtually all health care indexes spiraled downward, etc. The political and economic turmoil of the Gorbachev -- Yeltsin years were a further denouement. The situation was ripe for change -- any change -- and Putin has simply acted in response to these national traumas. His promises (and actions) have been directed to improving Russia's economic situation and, more importantly, restoring its political standing in the world. Only occasionally have his actions prompted nation-wide protest demonstrations.
     The American side. Until midnight, November 8, 2017, most pundits (left and right) and the left-leaning public, were unanimous: Trump would never win. Alas, they all failed to recognize the "Putin-like" dimension of Trump: The Donald spoke to the hitherto unheralded voters who felt abandoned, genuinely upset with the Washington gridlock. "Make America Great Again" and "Drain the Swamp" echoed mightily -- east to west, north to south. The pundits were once again reminded: "it's the electoral college that counts, dummy." He may have lost the popular vote, but..... You perhaps forgot our other four "minority" presidents? 1824 (JQ Adams), 1876 (Hayes), 1888 (Harrison), and 2000 (GW Bush)

Taxes. You know, one of Ben Franklin's two certainties in life. Your taxes are now calculated using a code that now runs to some 4M words. As George Will, Ron Wyden (D, OR), and others on Capitol Hill well know the code described by Wyden as a code that is “a rotting economic carcass,” in need of a total makeover. ("Wyden's wife asked him to stop [using the term and] scaring the children.") If the slow funeral-like procession of the health care bill is any indication, do not hold your breath for a new, streamlined tax revision. Trivia point from Mr.Will: There are more tax preparers in the US than police and fire fighters.

Success, the hard way. Kazi Mannan's success story was not fueled by inherited wealth, but rather by hard work and very, very long hours from his native Pakistan to Washington, D.C. "His two [current] self-started businesses provide jobs for more than 30 people...[and have] enabled him to start a school for 200 orphans in Pakistan and provide more than 6,000 meals a year to the homeless in Washington." Mannan's is a "boots on the ground" success story. 


16 July dates.  The infamous, 1945, Trinity Site. The world's first atomic explosion occurred near Alamogordo, NM. The site is open to the pubic two days year, one on the anniversary of the test.          The famous, 1969, Cape Canaveral. The Apollo 11 flight blasted off. The subsequent moon landing was the only live TV program shown on AFN during the year I was at Cam Rahn Bay, then South Vietnam.


Burial at sea. Chinese Communist officials, hoping to avoid a permanent gathering site, ordered and orchestrated the at-sea scattering of the ashes of Nobel Laurette Liu Xiaobo, somewhere along the Chinese coast. What they have misread, of course, is that now a visit anywhere along the Chinese coast will provide a place the anyone to reflect on Liu's thoughts and contributions to China and the world.
     In the USSR, his books might have been banned, but the Communist government allowed Pasternak to be buried in Peredelkino, the rural dacha retreat of the Union of  Soviet Writers. Perhaps it was the Russian public's deep appreciation for their great poets and writers that overrode -- prevented (?) -- any other course of action. Ever since his death (1960) Pasternak's grave (and now his dacha) are much-visited sites by Russians and foreign tourists alike.

The press' "Which" hunt. In a recent Toles cartoon, the press person asks a series of questions that all begin with "Which...." so naturally the president naturally responds, "This is just a which hunt."  Indeed!


Delay on Health Care. This article from The Hill is one of the many stories about why majority leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) has had to call yet another delay in the Senate on health care legislation, the Better Care Act. This time the flimsy excuse is that the Senate must await the recovery of Senator McCain (R, AZ) who was hospitalized in Phoenix for a "minor" problem. It is increasingly obvious that Republicans have done little in the past 8 years to write a meaningful proposal. Anti-anything doth not a law make.
     At their annual summer meeting in Providence, RI, the nation's governors showed little stomach for the impending legislative proposals advanced thus far. The Senate's last (?) rewrite included expanded funding to fight the opioid crisis. Too little, too late say many health care experts and many county-level officials, especially those in law enforcement and first responders. Did you ever dream your child/grandchild's teacher would have to be trained for something beyond CPR and the Heimlich maneuver?
     Again, take your pick of links. The hospitalization of Senator McCain (R, AZ) gave Senator McConnell a very brief respite -- it lasted only hours, until two more Republicans announced they would not support the Senate's compromise.

Coal and bourbon. Whether or not the Trump administration and US coal industry want to admit it, the coal is dying, a natural death brought on by events and conditions over and above  increased government regulation. Multiple companies are not even re-investing in expansion, rather they are investing in alternative energy venues. As pointed out in a New Yorker story there is "trouble in coal country. Only the small metallurgical mines are increasing production, due in part to production problems in Canada and China.
     On the wetter side, it seems that Europeans are falling in love with the taste of bourbon whiskey. While this might seem good news for Kentucky, there are problems. President Trump's talk about increasing export taxes has the EU investigating ways to retaliate. One low-hanging fruit is American liquor, especially bourbon. Bad news, indeed, for Senator McConnell, whose state produces both coal and bourbon. As one story pointed out, love may well spawn copycat brewers in Europe. 

Thank you for reading and, in the midst of the ACA/BCA crisis, I wish you good health.