Bernie Sanders Has Already Won

11 March 20

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11 March 20

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HELLO READER SUPPORTERS: WE NEED HELP! At a dead stop once again on donations. We are barely at ten percent for March. 115 Readers have taken a moment to make a contribution. Join them. This keeps the process going. Yes it is necessary. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Bernie Sanders Has Already Won

Michael Kazin, The New York Times
Kazin writes: "Despite his victory Tuesday night in the New Hampshire primary, Bernie Sanders still faces an uphill climb to win the Democratic nomination and if successful could well lose to President Trump this fall."

EXCERPT:

Whether he captures the White House or not, he has transformed the Democratic Party.

 Yet even in defeat, the first self-declared socialist in American history to have a realistic chance at both prizes is likely to achieve a different kind of victory, one few actual presidents ever have: transforming the ideology and program of a major party.

In fact, those candidates who manage to shift the party decisively are often not the ones who win the White House itself.

In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, running as a Democrat against William McKinley, traveled the nation denouncing “the money power” and defending the rights of labor. Despite his loss that year, and in two subsequent races, his party embraced the pro-regulation, antimonopoly, pro-union stand of this eloquent politician called “the Great Commoner.” The resulting policies did much to elect Woodrow Wilson to the White House twice (with Bryan as his secretary of state from 1913 to 1915) and Franklin Roosevelt four times.

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CDC's laboratory test kit for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). (photo: CDC)

Don't Expect a Coronavirus Test Just Because Your Doctor Requests It
Richard Harris, NPR
Harris writes: "In the face of mixed messages and confusion about who can or should be tested for the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted updated guidance for doctors Sunday about when to test a patient."
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Joe Biden speaks with audience members during a bus tour stop in Mason City, Iowa. (photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP)

Biden Extends Delegate Lead Over Sanders With Wins in Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri and Idaho
Alex Seitz-Wald, NBC News
Seitz-Wald writes: "Joe Biden extended his delegate lead over Bernie Sanders in Tuesday night's primaries, according to projections."
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A Trump rally. (photo: Jim Mone/AP)

'We Need the Wall!': Trump Twists Coronavirus Fears to Push His Own Agenda
Maanvi Singh, Guardian UK
Singh writes: "As the threat of the coronavirus in the US grew and markets reeled amid growing uncertainty, Donald Trump on Tuesday promoted one of his signature policy proposals. 'We need the Wall more than ever!' he tweeted."
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Bernie Sanders. (photo: The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images)

20 Leading Economists Sign Letter Arguing Medicare for All Would Generate Massive Savings for American Families
Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Business Insider
Zeballos-Roig writes: "Twenty of the nation's leading economists argued in support of Medicare for All in an open letter first published by Business Insider on Tuesday."

"We believe the available research supports the conclusion that a program of Medicare for All (M4A) could be considerably less expensive than the current system, reducing waste and profiteering inherent in the current system, and could be financed in a way to ensure significant financial savings for the vast majority of American households," the economists wrote in the open letter.

"Most important, Medicare for All will reduce morbidity and save tens of thousands of lives each year," the group of economists said. 

The letter was provided by Business for Medicare for All, an advocacy group pressing for universal healthcare in the US.

The economists aren't coming out in favor of a specific candidate, though some have individually consulted with Democratic presidential campaigns (at least one has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders).

Instead, they're making the case that a government-run health insurance system would slash wasteful spending and generate massive savings for most Americans.

Dr. Gerald Friedman, a professor at the University of Massachussetts Amherst, told Business Insider that the best argument for a universal healthcare system is its potential ability to rein in the skyrocketing costs of healthcare.

"There's been too much loose talk that Medicare for All is unaffordable," Friedman said. "What's really unaffordable is the current system. We spend about twice the average for affluent countries in the OECD on healthcare," referring to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. 

Friedman also noted that increased spending often leads to worse health outcomes compared to other developed nations.

Among the letter's signatories are prominent progressive economists like former Labor secretary Robert Reich; Jeffrey Sachs, a leading expert on poverty; Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, two professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who laid out plans for a wealth tax; and Darrick Hamilton, a professor of economics at the Ohio State University and a pioneer in economic inequality research.

Medicare for All is the signature plan of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the remaining progressive candidate in the Democratic primary. It would set up a new government health insurance system that provides comprehensive benefits to Americans and toss out deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-pocket spending. Private insurance would be eliminated as well.

Estimates for a system that ensures benefits on the scale Sanders is seeking is upwards of $30 trillion over 10 years. A recent study from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning organization, suggested it could increase the wages of workers and boost the development of small businesses.

The proposal turned into an ideological faultline in the primary, dividing moderates like former Vice President Joe Biden who sought incremental measures to expand coverage and progressives such as Sanders calling to replace the existing system with something entirely new. 

In addition to Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren also rolled out a plan to achieve universal healthcare within four years before dropping out of the race.

Skeptics of Medicare for All argue it's a progressive pipe dream that won't be achieved anytime soon. They note it'd be an enormous lift politically even among Democrats, most of whom don't support the idea, The New York Times reported.

An ongoing poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that while a slim majority of the public supports Medicare for All, backing flips when respondents learn they could lose their private health insurance or pay more in taxes. 

The economists in the letter, though, say that "shifting the burden" onto taxation of wealthier households would "magnify savings."

"A system that cuts costs and shifts financing to income and wealth taxes will dramatically lower this burden, producing significant savings for workers and businesses," they write.

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ICE Detention center. (photo: Getty)

22-Year-Old Guatemalan Asylum-Seeker Dies in ICE Custody; 8th Death Since October
Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News
Montoya-Galvez writes: "A 22-year-old asylum-seeker from Guatemala detained by U.S. immigration authorities died at a Texas hospital Sunday, becoming the eighth immigrant to die in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in fiscal year 2020."
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A farmer and his dog in a burnt region of the Amazon rainforest in Rondônia state, Brazil. (photo: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images)

Ecosystems the Size of Amazon 'Can Collapse Within Decades'
Jonathan Watts, Guardian UK
Watts writes: "Even large ecosystems the size of the Amazon rainforest can collapse in a few decades, according to a study that shows bigger biomes break up relatively faster than small ones."

Large biomes can break down like Jenga bricks once tipping point reached, research finds

ven large ecosystems the size of the Amazon rainforest can collapse in a few decades, according to a study that shows bigger biomes break up relatively faster than small ones.

The research reveals that once a tipping point has been passed, breakdowns do not occur gradually like an unravelling thread, but rapidly like a stack of Jenga bricks after a keystone piece has been dislodged.

The authors of the study, published on Tuesday in the Nature Communications journal, said the results should warn policymakers they had less time than they realised to deal with the multiple climate and biodiversity crises facing the world.

To examine the relationship between an ecosystem’s size and the speed of its collapse, the authors looked at 42 previous cases of “regime shift”. This is the term used to describe a change from one state to another – for example, the collapse of fisheries in Newfoundland, the death of vegetation in the Sahel, desertification of agricultural lands in Niger, bleaching of coral reefs in Jamaica, and the eutrophication of Lake Erhai in China.

They found that bigger and more complex biomes were initially more resilient than small, biologically simpler systems. However, once the former hit a tipping point, they collapse relatively faster because failures repeat throughout their modular structure. As a result, the bigger the ecosystem, the harder it is likely to fall.

Based on their statistical analysis, the authors estimate an ecosystem the size of the Amazon (approximately 5.5m km²) could collapse in approximately 50 years once a tipping point had been reached. For a system the size of the Caribbean coral reefs (about 20,000 km²), collapse could occur in 15 years once triggered.

The paper concludes: “We must prepare for regime shifts in any natural system to occur over the ‘human’ timescales of years and decades, rather than multigenerational timescales of centuries and millennia.

“Humanity now needs to prepare for changes in ecosystems that are faster than we previously envisaged through our traditional linear view of the world, including across Earth’s largest and most iconic ecosystems, and the social-ecological systems that they support.”

The paper says this could be the case in Australia where the recent Australian bushfires followed protracted periods of drought and may indicate a shift to a drier ecosystem.

Scientists were already aware that systems tended to decline much faster than they grew but the new study quantifies and explains this trend.

“What is new is that we are showing this is part of a wider story. The larger the system, the greater the fragility and the proportionately quicker collapses,” John Dearing, professor in physical geography at the University of Southampton and lead author of the study, said.

“What we are saying is don’t be taken in by the longevity of these systems just because they may have been around for thousands, if not millions, of years – they will collapse much more rapidly than we think.”

Dearing said he was concerned that one of the possible implications of the study was that complete destruction of the Amazon could occur within his grandchildren’s lifetimes.

“This is a paper that is satisfying from a scientific point of view, but worrying from a personal point of view. You’d rather not come up with such a set of results,” he said.

A separate study last week warned the Amazon could shift within the next decade into a source of carbon emissions rather than a sink, because of damage caused by loggers, farmers and global heating.

Experts said the new findings should be a spur to action.

“I think the combination of theory, modelling and observations is especially persuasive in this paper, and should alert us to risks from human activities that perturb the large and apparently stable ecosystems upon which we depend,” said Georgina Mace, professor of biodiversity and ecosystems at University College London, who was not involved in the studies.

“There are effective actions that we can take now, such as protecting the existing forest, managing it to maintain diversity, and reducing the direct pressures from logging, burning, clearance and climate change.”

These views were echoed by Ima Vieira, an ecologist at Museu Emílio Goeldi in Belém, Brazil. “This is a very important paper. For Brazil to avoid the ecosystem collapse modelled in this study, we need to strengthen governance associated to imposing heavy fines on companies with dirty supply chains, divestment strategies targeting key violators and enforcement of existing laws related to environmental crimes. And we have to be quick.”

However, the methodology was not universally accepted. Erika Berenguer, a senior research associate at the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, said the regime shifts paper relied too much on data from lakes and oceans to be useful as an indicator of what would happen to rainforests.

“While there is no doubt the Amazon is at great risk and that a tipping point is likely, such inflated claims do not help either science or policy making,” she said.

The authors said their study was not a forecast about a specific region but a guide to the speed at which change could occur.

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