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From: Alexandra Bixler

Columbus

Nearly every candidate that runs for office in the United States places healthcare as one of their top campaign priorities. They promise to make healthcare more affordable for you and your family. Nonetheless, problems in our healthcare system persist, and the status quo remains unchanged. The U.S. healthcare system is broken, and is currently being put to the test in the wake of COVID as Americans lose their jobs and insurance.

The United States has one of the lowest affordability rates in the industrial world, despite spending the most on healthcare per capita at a total of $2.6 trillion a year. Additionally, as of 2019, 13% of American adults said they lost at least one friend or family member in the last five years because they could not afford medical treatment. This is partially attributed to unaffordable drug prices. Thirty percent of Americans from ages 50-64 experience difficulty affording their prescription drugs. This is a result of the abuse of patents. Drug manufacturers use their patent to create a monopoly on production, artificially increase costs, and engage in evergreening to extend patents even if the drugs functional purposes remain unchanged.

These flaws in the healthcare system are attributed to the health industrys purposeful infiltration of Congress. Pharmaceutical manufacturers and health products spent almost $300 million in 2019 alone to lobby Congress and ensure the status quo of our healthcare system does not change, while posting record profits for their shareholders. These contributions are not simply donations: theyre investments. Healthcare players expect a return on their investment in the form of higher profit margins, tax cuts, subsidies, politicians opposing any public option, and strengthening the very patent laws that make drug prices so unaffordable. The breakup of recipients from health products and big pharma is split by party nearly 50-50. Democrats and Republicans are guilty of putting the interests of big donors before your health.

While it is clear something needs to change, the candidate who raises the most money in an election wins 91% of the time. The bulk of this funding often comes from out-of-state Super PACs or big donors, not the constituents that are supposed to be represented by their legislator. To see the change in our healthcare industry, Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that created Super PACs, which allows unlimited dark money to infiltrate our elections, needs to be overturned.

One group actively working towards this goal is American Promise, a bipartisan organization solely focused on the passage of a 28th amendment that would ensure fair elections, and enact meaningful campaign finance reform. While COVID-19 has impacted us all, it has certainly been exacerbated by our healthcare system, which has been long broken from big pharma and the healthcare industry.

Read more here:
Letter: The health industry has a grip on our democracy - The Republic

Our nation is hurting in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd, an African American man who died after a Minneapolis police officer restrained him by placing his knee on the back of his neck; three other police officers were involved.

Its not surprising that protests quickly emerged, not only in the Twin Cities but in cities large and small from coast to coast, including South Dakota. Stories and images of these protests have emerged. They include the rioting, looting and violence as extremists hijacked the peaceful protests causing major disruption, violence and horrific damage to property.

We know this because journalists have been telling this unfolding story as residents in scores of communities continue to react to Floyds death.

Sadly, some journalists themselves have become victims of violence and unjustified police harassment and detention.

A CNN crew was arrested in the Twin Cities while giving a live television report the morning of May 29.

In Louisville, Ky., a crowd swarmed a television photographer and knocked him to the ground, laughing and taking pictures of him.

In that same city, a police officer fired more than a half-dozen non-lethal PepperBall rounds that hit a TV reporter and photojournalist.

A television photographer in Minneapolis was taken into custody by the Minnesota State Patrol last weekend.

On Sunday, police arrested a Des Moines Register (Iowa) reporter while she was covering a demonstration that turned violent.

Time and again, journalists identified themselves to law enforcement as press and flashed their news media credential badges, but to no avail.

Last weekend, Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, made the following statement:

The numerous, targeted attacks that journalists reporting on protests across the country have faced from law enforcement over the last two nights are both reprehensible and clear violations of the First Amendment. These attacks not only endanger our free press, but also threaten our democracy and the essential role that journalists play in safeguarding constitutional rights.

Many of these attacks were captured on live broadcasts. The video evidence showing journalists under police assault simply for doing their jobs is harrowing. We strongly condemn these actions and will be contacting law enforcement in each jurisdiction to demand a full explanation and accountability for officers who knowingly targeted journalists.

We also condemn all attacks on reporters by protesters. Media coverage of the demonstrations is indispensable to helping our nation bear witness. Assaults on journalists from protesters are unlawful and make it harder for reporters to keep the country informed during this period of civil unrest.

Its a shame we need a statement like this.

Sadly, this does not come as a surprise.

President Donald Trump has used Twitter to seed mistrust of journalists. Not only has he called legitimate, credible news organizations fake news and the lamestream media, he also personally insults and demeans reporters to their faces. Attacking the press has become a key element in his political playbook.

You cant directly link the presidents verbal attacks on the press with the physical attacks weve seen in recent days; he did not tell people to do that.

But the words President Trump uses and the attitude he promotes have impact. Those sentiments and the constant barrage of those verbal attacks encourage, empower and enable the mistrust of journalists.

Journalists have thick skin and will continue to do their jobs.

But I fear for our culture, our social fabric and our democracy.

At its essence the work of journalism is to gather information and inform the public. That means sharing objective, truthful facts and information; not spin, not political rhetoric, not prepackaged sound-bites; the truth.

Thats why Americas founders enshrined a free press in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights. It is the essential difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.

Journalism is not perfect. Journalists are not perfect.

But the ideals we promote truth and accountability are essential.

Journalism has never been more important than at this moment. We need to protect it from those who, by word and deed, seek to diminish or destroy it.

So where do we go from here? Dialogue earnest conversation among journalists, elected and law enforcement officials is a logical first step. We need conversation and training at every level local, state and national. Its important that government and law enforcement officials better understand the roles and responsibilities of journalists under the First Amendment. Its also important that journalists better understand the work and responsibilities of elected and law enforcement officials.

We all need to understand whats at stake and why a fair, free press doing its job unfettered is so important today in America.

Retired Freeman Courier publisher and editor Timothy L. Waltner is chairman of the South Dakota Newspaper Association First Amendment Committee. The committee and newspaper association advocate for free speech and a free press.

Read more from the original source:
Waltner: Democracy demands journalists be allowed to do their job - AberdeenNews.com

By Rachel Adriaans and Danielle Wicklander

As governments around the globe enter into their respective election seasons, a frightening question must be asked regarding how our elections will proceed here in Canada.

We all know that our federal, provincial and municipal governments have traditionally offered in-person voting locations for voters to cast their paper ballot. However, if these elections arise mid-pandemic, will voters have to choose between their health and their democratic right to vote?

The obvious answer is that they should not be placed in a position where they are forced to make this choice and that our governments should be finding ways to protect both the health of our voters and their right to cast their ballot.

Remarkably, there are those out there who would disagree with this approach, which is precisely what we saw in the Wisconsin primary election this past April. Even though several states chose to delay their primaries or opt for a mail-in-ballot-only option, the Wisconsin courts upheld the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislatures challenge to Governor Tony Evers executive order for an all mail-in ballot election, and dismissed his subsequent attempts to postpone in-person voting.

Essentially, this decision flew in the face of that same governments stay-at-home orders and resulted in hour-long line-ups of voters attempting to social distance.

In our opinion, the governor rightly made a number of attempts to postpone or change the method of vote, which were thwarted at every turn by his Republican opponents. Despite the Trumpian talking points to the contrary, the reality is that the governor was not trying to cancel or make any significant changes to the election that would skew the outcome. He was simply trying to protect the health and safety of his voters.

Had the primary been about the voters themselves and not about party politics (if you do not believe us, take look at the current state of California), these elections could have and likely would have been conducted differently as there are a number of alternative voting methods that could have been used, such as online voting or mail-in paper ballots.

In this scenario, your resident election geeks would have recommended the latter.

Of course, it is not easy to persuade American voters to embrace the mail-in paper ballot voting method when their president is decrying the method and continually making false claims that mail-in ballot voting is too highly susceptible to election fraud. Sigh. We have also heard this argument before in our own election experiences and we will continue to counter-argue that voter fraud is a severe election offence, one that is not taken lightly.

Additionally, when we take a moment to analyze the voter fraud issue from voters perspectives, we realize we continually tell voters they need to place faith in their elected politicians and democratic processes. In light of this, should we not be placing that same amount of faith in the voters themselves?

The ironic aspect about the argument that Trump is making about the correlation between election/voter fraud and mail-in-ballots is that he did not think twice about casting his own mail-in ballot for himself while he was spouting his falsehoods.

This brings to light another key political issue. As elections approach, will politicians put their own partisan interests first, advocating for a voting method that will benefit their campaigns and voter bases, or will they choose methods that place their voters health and voting rights at the forefront?

One can only hope that our Canadian politicians will ignore the poor examples being set in the United States and make the right decisions.

That being said, are our own municipal, federal and provincial governments here in Canada and the independent agencies that work for them even currently equipped to make the best decisions in the interests of Canadian voters? We think not.

Let us evaluate the ability of Elections Canada. The Canada Elections Act, 2000 allows Elections Canada to make certain decisions about how the federal election will be administered. For example, they could currently decide to host training sessions for election officials online as opposed to in-person, which would benefit Canadians amidst a pandemic.

However, Elections Canada does not have unlimited discretion or powers that rise above the limitations prescribed in the Canada Elections Act. They cannot proceed with certain mundane changes such as eliminating the use of pencils used for marking paper ballots or the assignment of voters to a specific voting location (any of you who have voted and stood in a federal election line-up will understand this frustration).

To make matters worse, this legislation does not allow Elections Canada to offer mail-in paper ballots as a sole voting method or make any other changes to the method of vote. This leaves the power in the hands of partisan governments to decide, how, when and where voters will cast their ballots for them. Are we the only ones who think this sounds like a bit of a conflict of interest? Yikes!

So what can Canadian governments do? They can be proactive. Our federal, provincial and municipal governments are long overdue to modernize the legislation surrounding our democratic processes, especially election legislation. As election organizers, we saw how aspects of the legislation known as the Municipal Elections Act, 1996 impacted our ability to organize the City of Greater Sudbury 2018 municipal and school board election in an even more modern way.

In sum, we desperately want to see Canadian elections that reflect the modernity of todays democratic society (and we are sure you do, too). We kindly ask our governments to amend these archaic pieces of legislation so that we can run elections that best suit the world we live in and in a manner that is free from political interference. Those in power need to be enabled to make the best election decisions for the health and safety of all Canadians, while protecting their right to vote. Today, we believe that decision is mail-in paper ballots or another distance voting method such as online voting.

Its time to be blunt and to take action.

Our democracy does not need to go on the defensive.

Rachel Adriaans and Danielle Wicklander are the female contingent of theteam that produces the Sudbury Politics -- The Show podcast.

A rotating stable of community members share their thoughts on anything and everything, the only criteria being that it be thought-provoking.

See original here:
#TheSoapbox: Is democracy on the defensive? - Sudbury.com

Ever since the political mess that was the one-day-only parliament meeting on May 18 that featured a speech by the King and little else, the Malaysian Parliament has not been meeting in fear of spreading or contracting the coronavirus.

The Malaysian government has held fast onto its decision that its next parliament meeting will be held on July 13, and will take place over the span of 15 days.

But Malaysian youths are not pleased with that decision. Especially as the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) has began loosening its restrictions and many citizens are slowly becoming more used to what we now call 'the new normal' post-coronavirus pandemic.

PARLIMEN DIGITAL MEMERLUKAN ANDA @Challenger_MY, @Undi18, dan @LigaRakyatLRD secara sepakat ingin memperkenalkan Parlimen Digital: sebuah platform yang menghimpun 222 belia untuk 2 hari bagi berdebat, berbincang dan meluluskan rang undang-undang/polisi. @ParlimenDigital pic.twitter.com/HB1Jo0cMHo

The youth-led initiative will be hosting a virtual parliamentary sitting on July 4 and 5 to "propose recommendations to address the economic and health crises in Malaysia," particularly on the topic on policy recommendations regarding COVID-19.

It will be screened lived to showcase "the feasibility of a virtual parliamentary democracy."

The most interesting part of the virtual parliament?

The only requirements is that participants must be 15 to 35 years old, and that participants must be able to speak in Bahasa Malaysia as the meeting will be conducted in the national language.

"Young people have a voice. Express your perpectives on the policies that need to be implemented to address the COVID-19 crisis and prevent the nation from entering a recession. If we, as a group of youth, can gather, why can't the Malaysian House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat)?" the organizers stated in a Twitter post.

This is not the first time that implementation of an electronic parliamentary system has been brought up.

In an article by the New Straits Times, a professional technologist said that setting one up could take up to two years and an investment of between RM2 million (US$469,314) to RM5 million (US$1.17 million). That's because there is a risk that confidential data such as health and banking details of the ministers could be stolen.

Former Dewan Rakyat deputy Speaker Wan Junaidi bin Tuanku Jaafar also supported efforts in creating an e-parliament, but said it could take up to a year or more to be implemented as house rules have to be amended first.

"First, the speaker must make an appeal to the King to allow for parliamentary sessions to be done outside the Parliament building," he said to the New Straits Times.

"He also has to make a new decree to endorse this because when the building was built in 1959 and the King at the time had decreed that the house was henceforth where Parliament meetings would be held."

Cover image sourced from New Straits Times and @ParlimenDigital.

Read more:
Youths are leading Malaysia's first ever virtual parliament to prove that democracy can go digital - Mashable SE Asia

Liberals are constantly demanding that we believe the science. Im all for that. But the problem is the science changes, often quickly. Worse yet, what some want to call science is increasingly politics masquerading as science. And nothing has demonstrated that better than the coronavirus.

Consider House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiNRCC turns up heat on vulnerable Democrats over Omar's call to abolish police Shocking job numbers raise hopes for quicker recovery Engel primary challenger hits million in donations MORE (D-Calif.). In an April press conference discussing the coronavirus pandemic she said, If you dont believe in science and you dont believe in governance, that is their [Republicans] approach.

Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersBiden formally clinches Democratic presidential nomination OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Trump signs order removing environmental reviews for major projects | New Trump air rule will limit future pollution regulations, critics say | DNC climate group calls for larger federal investment on climate than Biden plan Google: Chinese and Iranian hackers targeting Biden, Trump campaigns MORE (I-Vt.) said last March that the Trump White House has shown the world that it does not believe in science.

And lets not overlook Democratic presidential nominee Joe BidenJoe BidenBiden formally clinches Democratic presidential nomination The Memo: Job numbers boost Trump and challenge Biden Chris Wallace: Jobs numbers show 'the political resilience of Donald Trump' MORE. On May 19 he tweeted, We need a president who believes in science.

These believe the science scolds are little more than thinly vailed efforts to attack conservatives who ask reasonable questions. They also convey a sanctimonious intellectual superiority over anyone who challenges the left.

But demands that we believe the science raise the question: Which science are we supposed to believe?

Earlier this year the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rejected the notion that the public should be wearing face masks. CDC Director Robert Redfield told a House committee, There is no role for these masks in the community. And U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted, STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching coronavirus.

I watched several of the experts explaining last January and February why wearing anything but an N95 mask wouldnt protect the wearer or others. And several TV pundits went so far as to mock people who did wear masks.

But by early April, the CDC had flipped. CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus.

So in February you were silly if you wore a mask, and by April you were a fool not to. As Biden said of President Trump the day after Memorial Day, hes an absolute fool for not wearing a mask.

Heres the question: Was it science (1) when the CDC rejected mask wearing; or (2) when the CDC strongly recommended everyone wear a mask; or (3) does the CDC flip-flop demonstrate that the science may change when more information becomes available?

Warning to liberals: If you choose the third option you undercut all of your politically motivated believe the science rants.

Oh, and now the health experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) say heathy people should only wear masks if they are taking care of someone with COVID-19 or coughing or sneezing or under a few other circumstances.

So while Trumps recent in-person meetings with businesses apparently did not meet Bidens science, he did meet the WHOs science.

Will someone please tell me which science I am supposed to believe?

Theres more. In March and April, we saw lots of scientific studies discussing how long the coronavirus could survive on various objects. That led to massive wipe-downs, fumigations and sterilizations of everything.

But the CDC recently updated its guidance, informing us that the virus is spread mainly from person-to-person. While it can happen, the CDC does not think the virus spreads easily through contact with things.

And the political nature of believe the science appeared again in the recent protest marches and even riots over the tragic death of George Floyd.

For the past few months the left has warned us against reopening the economy too soon. The science, we were told, said it would lead to a spike in coronavirus infections and death.

But those same people have been largely silent as thousands of people flooded the streets to protest the Floyd death. Most protesters were not wearing masks. Most were not socially distancing. Many were singing, chanting and even screaming all of which the science now says are the primary ways the coronavirus is spread.

The George Floyd demonstrations are both understandable and a constitutional right unless they devolve into riots and destruction. But not only are the believe-the-science scolds not criticizing the protest marches, they are supporting them.

Science changes over time as we learn more, which is why one has to be careful in proclaiming that an issue is settled science.

Its the blatantly political nature of believe the science that has so many people questioning and even doubting the claims. Because when liberals admonish people to believe the science, what they are usually saying is shut up and do as youre told.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @MerrillMatthews.

View original post here:
Liberals: Which 'science' are we supposed to believe? | TheHill - The Hill