Zorro
Zorro's JournalAetna pulls back on Obamacare health insurance plans in 2017
Source: Reuters
Aetna Inc, the No. 3 U.S. health insurer, on Monday said that due to persistent financial losses on Obamacare plans, it will sell individual insurance on the government-run online marketplaces in only four states next year, down from the current 15 states.
Aetna's decision follows similar moves from UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Humana Inc., which have cited similar concerns about financial losses on these exchanges created under President Barack Obama's national healthcare reform law.
Aetna is also trying to buy Humana and is currently fighting a U.S. government lawsuit aimed at blocking the $34 billion deal.
Aetna, which earlier this year said it was too soon to give up on the exchanges despite its challenges, this month signaled it was reconsidering. On Aug. 2, the company said it would not expand in 2017 and would review all its individual business.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/aetna-cuts-obamacare-exchange-plans-only-four-states-002118718--finance.html
TRUMP BLAMES BAD POLL NUMBERS ON EXISTENCE OF NUMERICAL SYSTEM
YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump lashed out at a new target on Monday, blaming his bad poll numbers on the existence of the numerical system.
In sometimes rambling remarks at an outdoor rally in Ohio, the Republican Presidential nominee called the numerical system “rigged” and unleashed a torrent of abuse on numbers themselves, calling them “disgusting” and “the lowest form of life.”
“It’s why I won’t release my taxes,” he said. “They’re full of goddam numbers.”
While Republican candidates in the past have attempted to exploit their supporters’ distrust of math, Trump is believed to be the first nominee to call into question the numerical system itself.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-blames-bad-poll-numbers-on-existence-of-numerical-system
Op-ed: This lifelong Republican will be voting for Hillary Clinton
I spent the past few weeks tramping through the ruins of lost empires. There's a Planet of the Apes surrealism to ancient Corinth, and it's hard not to see parallels between the Delian League and NATO. Delos, Ephesus and Mycenae are the rubble of once-powerful civilizations.
It's impossible to survey the deserted landscapes and not ponder the causes of decline and collapse. Natural disasters made their unique contributions, but military/political strategic disaster and ruler ineptitude play out again and again. Scipio Africanus is said to have wept as he inflicted Roman vengeance upon Carthage because he foresaw a similar fate for Rome. Americans like to think we are exceptional, but that's a fraught assumption.
An airport layover in Dusseldorf left me with some time to kill. There were a couple of women sitting nearby reading German newspapers, which prompted me to ask them what they thought about the American election and Donald Trump. Their responses were carefully measured, but here's the gist: "Why would your country elect such a dangerous person — not just such a danger for you, but such a danger for the rest of us?" "He's just not a serious person; he doesn't seem to know much about the rest of the world." "He is a crazy man."
I've been an active Republican for all of my adult life. That this venerable political party, once home to visionary thinkers and leaders, could hand its presidential nomination to Trump, who seems not to know how much he doesn't know and could not care less, is unfathomable to me. It is unfortunate that so many of those who claim to be leaders of the congressional and presidential wings of the Republican Party have long since made their Faustian bargains and are actively endorsing a totally self-centered know-nothing who behaves like the caricature of a banana-republic dictator.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/4222913-155/op-ed-this-lifelong-republican-will-be
Utah might indeed go blue this election.
How the GOP’s Double Life Blew Up in Its Face
For 60 years now, the Republican party has managed to hold together an unlikely coalition of the business elite with angry, xenophobic, racist lower- to middle-class white voters. The GOP has maintained the veneer of a normal, respectable political party while plumbing the depths of hatred, crassly manipulating public opinion and spreading outrageous conspiracy theories. Like a seemingly distinguished man hiding a secret life of sin, the GOP has managed to conceal its more openly ugly side in plain sight – greatly enabled by the media and years of false equivalence reporting.
Today the media is struggling with how to tell the story of Trump’s demolition of the GOP, having spent so many years playing down the role of the nativist faction of the party in the interest of “balance” – i.e., the terror of ever being accused of being liberal. It is therefore important that we be as clear and straightforward as possible in exposing and demanding coverage of the truth.
No, Trump and his hateful minions did not suddenly descend from outer space to invade America in 2015. Rather, they have been purposely and assiduously cultivated by conservative elites since the 1950s. Indeed, the conservative base is so secure in its convictions, so well organized and so motivated precisely because they are the armies of voters that the GOP has been training and empowering for decades.
In other words, what we are seeing in the Republican party today is not truly a war of two opposing factions but the spectacle of the faction that has long been used by the other finally claiming the driver’s seat. Election after election, Republicans have stirred up their masses with all kinds of absurd propaganda in order to get them to vote for policies that overwhelmingly favor corporations and the wealthy. This time, the nativists want to put their man in the White House to make sure they don’t get fooled again.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/15/1560134/-How-the-GOP-s-Double-Life-Blew-Up-in-Its-Face
Good summary of how the GOP got to where they are today.
SpaceX lands Falcon 9 rocket after launching Japanese satellite
Source: AFP
SpaceX successfully landed a reusable Falcon 9 rocket on a floating drone ship at sea early Sunday after the vehicle had sent a Japanese communications satellite into orbit.
The California-based company's eighth launch this year was part of its ongoing effort to re-use costly rocket parts instead of jettisoning them into the ocean.
It was also the fourth time SpaceX has vertically landed a used Falcon 9 rocket aboard a floating platform at sea.
The white rocket launched under a dark night sky from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 1:26 am (0526 GMT).
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/spacex-lands-falcon-9-rocket-launch-073220596.html
This is now getting routine. Gotta give Elon credit where credit is due.
On the national stage, the Trump train stalls
Donald Trump hasn't quite asked the dead to vote for him, but he's nearly there.
"I joke a lot as I say if you're sick, if you just got the worse prognosis that a doctor can give you, if you're lying in bed and you just know you're not going to make it -- you have to get up on November 8th and you have to vote," he said Thursday.
At least nine times in the speech to evangelical leaders in key swing state Florida, the brash 70-year-old billionaire -- sometimes speaking in an uncharacteristically low voice -- called on them to ensure their parishioners cast their ballots for him.
The Republican presidential candidate is a bit worried about his chances in November against Hillary Clinton, and he's not exactly hiding it.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/national-stage-trump-train-stalls-114543354.html
Court upholds Venezuela opposition leader's 14-year sentence
A Venezuelan court upheld the 14-year sentence of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez on Friday, in a move likely to increase tension in the crisis-hit South American country.
Lopez has repeatedly declared himself innocent of the charge of inciting violence at anti-government protests in 2014, calling himself a political prisoner.
"This is certainly a political trial. Unfortunately, the government's interest takes priority over the justice system," Lopez's lawyer Juan Carlos Gutierrez told AFP.
"They upheld his sentence under the same terms," Gutierrez said, referring to the 14-year sentence.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/court-upholds-venezuela-opposition-leaders-14-sentence-022343802.html
What a farce.
Pieces of Silver
By now, it’s obvious to everyone with open eyes that Donald Trump is an ignorant, wildly dishonest, erratic, immature, bullying egomaniac. On the other hand, he’s a terrible person. But despite some high-profile defections, most senior figures in the Republican Party — very much including Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader — are still supporting him, threats of violence and all. Why?
One answer is that these were never men and women of principle. I know that many in the news media are still determined to portray Mr. Ryan, in particular, as an honest man serious about policy, but his actual policy proposals have always been transparent con jobs.
Another answer is that in an era of intense partisanship, the greatest risk facing many Republican politicians isn’t that of losing in the general election, it’s that of losing to an extremist primary challenger. This makes them afraid to cross Mr. Trump, whose ugliness channels the true feelings of the party’s base.
But there’s a third answer, which can be summarized in one number: 34.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/opinion/pieces-of-silver.html
“Moment of truth” for Venezuela's standing in Mercosur
The Venezuela government of president Nicolas Maduro whose democratic credentials are questioned internationally, self proclaimed itself pro tempore president of Mercosur for the second half of the year, but still has yet to incorporate 400 rules and regulations plus 50 accords to be considered a full member of Mercosur and the deadline is Friday, 12 August.
The raft of pending regulations and accords includes the group's Common External Tariff; the Montevideo protocol on Services Trade and the Cooperation and Assistance protocol on Civil, Commercial, Labor and Administrative Law. Likewise the Asunción Protocol on promotion and protection of Human Rights.
The three countries consider that if Venezuela does not comply with those requirements it does not enjoy full membership of Mercosur and thus is not entitled to hold the group's pro tempore rotating chair.
However the Maduro administration argues it is entitled to the rotating chair since it complies with statutory rules and the alphabetical order, after Uruguay turned in the presidency at the end of its six month mandate on 29 July.
http://en.mercopress.com/2016/08/11/moment-of-truth-for-venezuela-s-standing-in-mercosur
As Venezuela's farms and factories falter, the country struggles to feed its people
Just a decade ago, Venezuela was producing nearly all of the sugar it needed.
But this week, 30,000 tons of imported Guatemalan sugar is being offloaded at the port city of Puerto Cabello for delivery to government-run supermarkets across the country, where desperate shoppers typically line up for hours to buy basic foodstuffs.
In some ways, the sacks of sugar being lowered on pallets to waiting trucks at Dock 10 symbolize the plight of a country that has seen the production of sugar and other products plummet. Venezuela now imports 80% of all the sugar it consumes, and many economists say 17 years of socialist policies are to blame.
Last year, the country produced 242,306 tons of refined sugar, less than one-third of the 740,000 tons produced in 2006 when the country came close to meeting annual consumer demand of 900,000 tons, according to figures from Fesoca, the Venezuelan sugar trade association.
http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-venezuela-imports-20160809-snap-story.html
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