Incendiary Speech

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte proselytizes extra-judicial hit squads to clean out his nation’s drug dealers and users. Murder without risk. Poland’s leadership is profoundly anti-immigrant (particularly focused on Muslim refugees) and deeply pro-business. “[The] country's most powerful political figure is Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the nationalist-minded ruling Law and Justice party, which won 2015 parliamentary elections.

“Under Kaczynski, the party has moved to rein in the judiciary, sought to muscle media outlets into taking a more pro-government line and advanced various conspiracy theories, including one surrounding the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed dozens of Polish dignitaries including Kaczynski's twin brother, Lech, who was then president.” Los Angeles Times, 7/5/17. Stacking the highest court in the land (the Constitutional Tribunal) to erase liberal precedents was deemed illegal by that Tribunal… But that reversal did not alter the dilution of judicial power; the political leadership just ignored the ruling. Generally, Poles who disagree with governmental policies place themselves at real physical risk.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his party, Fidesz, mirror the severe shift to the right witnessed in Poland… but as reactionary as Orbán may be, the second most popular party in the country, Jobbik — the Movement for a Better Hungary — is even more right wing, with ties to the Kremlin and Iran. Orbán forced a new constitution that centralizes more power under his aegis; freedom appears to be leaving the building.

 In an almost certain victory for right-wing Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, he stands accused of inappropriate speech, fake news and fomenting political violence. Reeling from horrific corruption and a tanking economy, Brazil has produced a reaction against established parties and institutions. Bolsonaro addresses his disenchanted base and “advocates for looser gun laws. Visiting a shooting range in Miami last year, he suggested that Brazilian police officers should carry .50-caliber handguns so they could kill suspects with one shot only and avoid being accused of excessive force.

“His plan to boost the economy includes kicking indigenous people off their land to expand agribusiness. He has said that ‘minorities have to shut up, to fall in line with the majority,’ and he told a crowd of cheering supporters in Acre state to ‘gun down the petralhada,’ a reference to the [leftist] Workers’ Party…

“Bolsonaro’s rhetoric has been widely blamed as a factor in a wave of political violence…The Brazilian investigative journalism organization Publica released a report on Oct. 10 that showed at least 71 politically motivated violent attacks occurred between Sept. 30 and Oct. 10. Of those attacks, 50 were attributed to supporters of Bolsonaro.” Los Angeles Times, October 26^th.

What’s the common thread in each of the above examples? There is a deep shift all over the world in traditional democracies that are rapidly rejecting basic democratic principles in favor of raw autocracy. Nationalism and populism replace democratic principles. Due process, equal representation of all citizens under the law, protection of free speech and minority rights, freedom of religion… are rather dramatically vaporizing under the two most dynamic forces on earth: Malthusian population growth and the decimation of global climate change. The economic consequences have been nothing short of catastrophic. Destabilization with dire consequences.

As once fertile farms in primarily Sunni-held Syrian and Iraqi territory withered into permanent dust, as unsympathetic Shiite-led governments in Damascus and Baghdad denied relief, ISIS, al Nusra, al Qaeda and their ilk stepped in. Civil war redefined the region. Migrants pressed into Western Europe, fleeing both the violence and the loss of their livelihoods. The story was repeated in North Africa. The impact of this mass migration fomented anti-immigrant sentiments all over Europe, contributing to the populists who voted for Brexit the rise of right-wing populism all over the continent. The odor of Germany in the 1930s is rising once again into a global stench.

Incendiary words, condemning entire groups as socially unacceptable – Mexicans are “rapists and criminals,” the Democratic Party is an “angry mob” that wants to destroy America and mass media is the “enemy” of the people – are now acceptable and commonplace statements from the President of the United States.

Violence against members of the press or anyone who disagrees with him is equally acceptable. On October 18^th, Donald Trump openly praised Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting a reporter in his bid for Congress last year. During his campaign for the presidency, in February of 2016, Donald Trump said he wanted to punch a protester ‘in the face’ after the man disrupted a campaign rally in Las Vegas.

Reacting to a widespread notion in many media outlets that the pipe bombs, distributed to CNN and highly-placed Democrats, was a natural result of Trump’s unceasing rhetoric as a great enabler of populist violence, Trump rapidly turned the tables and blamed the vast majority of mainstream media as the real culprits for continuing to publish stories critical of him and his policies. If they flattered Trump and supported his “great” policies and plans, none of this would have ever happened. Like so many autocrats around the world and throughout history, Trump is a self-declared “nationalist.” Forget our constitutional notion of “free speech.” Right-wing conspiracy theorists, with wink-wink from the President, are even telling their sheep that the pipe bombs were in fact sent as part of a Democratic plot to make Trump look bad.

Trump’s fake news is his reality, but to him everything that contradicts his perspective is fake news that needs to be stopped. He has repeatedly called for major changes in the laws of slander and libel (defamation) to force mainstream media to stop the flow of anti-Trump criticism. Constitutional scholars have argued that the First Amendment would preclude any such efforts… but is that really true? There is already evidence that courts are applying new standards in what most lawyers believed has been a very established area of the law.

Writing for the October 26^th Lexology, attorney Mark Sableman (of the law firm of Thompson and Coburn) explains what could become a disturbing trend in defamation law: “In pre-social media, pre-Trump times, if someone accused you of knowingly lying about crucial facts, that would probably be defamatory. So Stormy Daniels’ case against Trump, based on those circumstances, seemed credible. Trump tweeted that a key part of her story, about being threatened, was false. He accused her of knowingly lying about crucial facts.

“But the court, in assessing [the defamation action of] Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels’ real name) versus Donald Trump, considered how people today think about accusations in social media, and (less explicitly) how they think about accusations by President Trump…

“Two things seem to have affected the balance. Today’s discourse, particularly in social media, truly is wild and reckless, across many platforms and many writers, and that recklessness has been given a kind of imprimatur by the Tweeter in Chief. The court in the Clifford case didn’t say it, but in a different case a few years ago, the court suggested that President Trump’s reckless tweeting practices have themselves changed expectations.”

What’s the bottom line here? First, these political trends are not “business as usual” or the normal functioning of the democratic process. These are seminal shifts in global sentiments generated by changing economics, internationalization, too many people with dwindling natural resources exacerbated by climate change plus the impact of rapidly accelerating technology.

Second, displaced incumbents feel betrayed by the systems that are clearly leaving them behind. New rules, new expectations and explosive change produce a need to place blame on scapegoats… incumbents, playing by the rules they have always known, simply do not understand or accept the massive and inevitable changes that have always defined humanity. We’ve been here before. Many times. We just do not seem to be able to learn the lessons of history.

I’m Peter Dekom, and absent the clear and decisive action of responsible people who care, the maxim that “it cannot happen here” will vaporize like water dripped onto a sizzling iron skillet.

The Pushme Pullyu of Healthcare – Preexisting Conditions

 “We’re going to have insurance for everybody”

Donald Trump, Washington Post interview, 01/15/2017

This was just a follow-up to the President’s earlier promises during his campaign. Preexisting conditions would be covered. Lifetime benefits would be banned. Prescription drug prices would tumble. Premiums and deductibles would fall. Nothing proposed by Republicans in Congress that would fulfill any of this. Nothing. Ever.

Republicans in Congress have voted well over 50 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act (the ACA aka Obamacare) since it was passed in 2009. While the Supreme Court gutted the requirement that individuals have healthcare insurance (subsidized for those who needed help) or pay a fine, there have been no successful congressional or judicial efforts to terminate the statute. Still, 20 Republican attorneys general have filed suit in a Fort Worth Federal District Court – known to be “GOP-friendly” – to find that the rest of the ACA, not vitiated by the above Supreme Court ruling, is unconstitutional and now unfunded without that individual mandate.

But even with GOP control of both houses of Congress, the last serious attempt by Republicans in Congress to repeal the ACA went down in flames when the late John McCain cast a deciding vote: “Sen. John McCain stunned much of the US and his party leaders on [July 27^th], when shortly before 2 a.m. ET he voted against a ‘skinny’ plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act.

“McCain joined two other Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted against the bill and quashed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan to upend the US healthcare system after 20 hours of debate.” BusinessInsider.com, July 28^th. Ever since, President Trump, who promised affordable quality healthcare for all – directly or through his minions at the Department of Health and Human Services – has slowly dismembered the statute at every turn.

Even the Trump’s recent proposal to require drug companies to disclose their pricing in advertising as his only real effort to reduce related costs (the most expensive on earth) is likely to go down in flames. Pharmaceutical companies, citing free speech rights under the First Amendment, have made it clear they have no intention of following any such governmental mandate. Nevertheless, Trump’s efforts at sabotaging the rest of the ACA, his own braggadocio that he will watch that healthcare program collapse and help that happen, have been legendary.

Under the guise of providing “affordability,” Trump has recklessly granted conservative states “exemptions” (which are constantly being challenged, usually successfully, in the courts) from the rigorous requirements of the ACA. By allowing states to issue “skinny” plans – cheap insurance with exceptionally limited or zero coverage for serious health issues (including preexisting conditions, which the ACA expressly forbids) – Trump claims he is making healthcare accessible to all at very low prices. With smoke and mirrors, he essentially violates the ACA’s prohibition against refusing to cover those preexisting conditions.

Effectively, “skinny” plan consumers get policies that only cover specific health issues, but if that issue is not in the policy, is simply is not covered. Hence there is technically no ban on preexisting conditions… just that most health issues that are the most common preexisting conditions simply are not covered. So twisting to avoid all those cases lost in the courts, the GOP is back trying to gut the ACA without legislation… even as many GOP candidates are backing off their anti-ACA positions, favored by too many of their constituents, in favor of “fixing” the statute. You might not believe them, since most are still backing a president hell-bent to make sure universal healthcare coverage is no longer a viable government policy.

“The Trump administration Monday [10/22] took new steps to broaden the availability of health plans that don’t have to cover patients’ preexisting medical conditions, signaling that the federal government would support state proposals to promote more sales of these skimpier plans.

“Administration officials billed the move as a way to give more choice to consumers who are struggling with expensive health insurance… ‘Now states will have a clearer sense of how they can take the lead on making available more insurance options,’ said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who has championed a host of efforts to loosen health insurance regulations established through the Affordable Care Act.

“But the latest administration proposal to weaken insurance standards comes as President Trump and Republican congressional candidates are intensifying their bid to convince voters that the GOP backs patient protections in the 2010 law, often called Obamacare… Just last week, Trump claimed on Twitter that ‘all Republicans support people with preexisting conditions.’

“And with just two weeks until the midterm election, GOP lawmakers who voted repeatedly last year to roll back the healthcare law and its protections are insisting they will preserve the rules on preexisting conditions…

“The new proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury Department would not explicitly scrap the law’s protections, which bar health plans from denying coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions.

But the administration plan would dramatically reshape rules established by the 2010 law that were designed to prevent states from weakening these protections.

“‘Republicans failed at repealing and replacing the ACA last year, but this new guidance gives states the flexibility to do much of it themselves,’ said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health insurance markets… ‘The door is now wide open for states to do an end run around the ACA by creating a parallel market with lower premiums but fewer protections for people with preexisting conditions.

“Under current law, states may apply to the federal government for permission to redesign their insurance markets and keep federal healthcare aid as long as the redesign does not decrease the number of people with comprehensive health coverage.

“This guardrail was intended to prevent states from enacting plans that would leave consumers with inadequate insurance coverage, as frequently happened before the healthcare law was enacted.

“The new plan would change this guardrail by supporting state proposals that could shift people out of comprehensive health plans into skimpier plans that don’t cover benefits such as prescription drugs, mental health services and maternity care, and that can deny coverage for preexisting medical conditions as long as a state’s residents still have access to a more comprehensive plan.

“‘This guidance focuses on the availability of comprehensive and affordable coverage,’” the administration says in the proposal. ‘This … ensures that state residents who wish to retain coverage similar to that provided under the [ACA] can continue to do so, while permitting a state plan to also provide access to other options that may be better suited to consumer needs and more attractive to many individuals.’” Los Angeles Times, October 23^rd.

Yet this is only part of the overall GOP plan to reduce the massive new deficit caused by a tax reform act that rewarded the rich and most definitely did not “pay for itself” by addressing “entitlements” – GOP-speak for stuff like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. GOP Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, has made it very clear that to bring that deficit under control, those social programs are simply going to have to face stiff cuts in the next legislative session… but only if the GOP controls both houses of Congress. Hint!!!!

I’m Peter Dekom, and screwing the poor, the sick and the elderly seems to be a high priority for the incumbent party in power.

Putting on Airs in the Office

U.S. results from trustiger.com

Ever been in a long meeting in a conference room with no open windows? Remember getting uncharacteristically sleepy? Or even getting a slight or growing headache over time? Stuffy? Worse? You are not alone. Even with HVAC air, warm or cool, coming into the room, it usually does not make up for the constant build-up of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from those in the meeting breathing out. But at least the closed windows can keep out particulate and car exhaust emissions, right? Not necessarily. It’s a problem that floats below the radar since it is not particularly obvious and… well… everybody does it. But just a CO₂ build-up, with nothing more, can cause drowsiness and headaches.

“Having air conditioning doesn’t help unless the system includes proper filters, as the outdoor air – potentially filled with pollutants – is sucked indoors and circulated around the office…

“Yet there’s not great awareness of the issue. We all notice air quality in our outdoor environment but less so indoors. Cath Noakes, a professor at the University of Leeds’ School of Civil Engineering who has researched indoor air quality, says the issue has long been overlooked because ‘it’s a lot less obvious… Outdoors, when very polluted, you can see and taste and smell it. But indoors, you often can’t detect what’s there. When people can’t see something, they dismiss it,’ she says.

“Yet they shouldn’t. The health impacts of poor outdoor air quality are well known – polluted air has been linked to respiratory tract infections, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A two-year study by medical journal The Lancet found that 6.5 million people die prematurely every year as a result of poor air quality. It also hits productivity - a 2014 study discovered that for every 10 micrograms of harmful PM2.5 particulates in the air, the productivity of pear pickers dropped by $0.41 per hour.

“People often think the answer is to escape indoors – but that’s not true. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), air pollution indoors is often between two and five times greater than outdoors – and can get at its extreme up to 100 times worse than the open air.

“‘Indoor air contains whatever pollution you have outside, plus whatever you are adding inside a building, like cooking and fumes from cleaning products and building materials,’ explains Matthew S Johnson, chief science officer at Airlabs, which installs air filtering technology that removes 95% of air pollutants and harmful gases.

“According to The Lancet, 800,000 people die every year due to poor air quality in their workplace. ‘In addition, 'sick building syndrome' can cause headaches and loss of productivity,’ Johnson says.” BBC.com, October 16^th. If you’ve traveled to Beijing or Mumbai on business, the outdoor air pollution is so toxic that having very sophisticated air filtration systems for offices and residences, at least for those who can afford these, has become quite the norm.

For example, the “number of air purifiers in China is rising substantially, nearly doubling in 2012-2013 – at a time when smog was particularly bad - then rising from 3.1m in 2013 to an estimated 7.5m by the end of 2018, according to Euromonitor. A report last year said manufacturers were innovating to meet demand, ‘using nanotechnology, increasing energy efficiency and reducing the noise levels.’

“Firms and businesses are also seeing the benefits of investing. In their Beijing and Shanghai offices, for example, large employers including WPP and PriceWaterhouse Coopers have installed air filtering systems in a bid to retain good staff. The Cordis hotel in Shanghai, which opened in 2017, advertises among its amenities the fact that it has ‘the latest filtration system technology’ which maintains indoor air quality within US EPA standards.” BBC.com

“At the moment there are no strict rules yet around the standard of the air we breathe in workplaces around the world, though the WHO developed guidelines in 2009 for indoor air quality. The US EPA provides ‘non-regulatory’ guidance, while the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is developing guidelines – not rules – for indoor air quality in UK homes. The guidelines are expected to be published next year, and the scope of the investigation indicates they will include potential interventions to remove sources of pollution and to introduce air filtering as standard.” But in the West, where air pollution is not so blatant, little attention is given to indoor air quality… often with disastrous results.

It's not just the air from CO₂ build-up or serious pollutants from outside that are the culprits. Fumes from plastics, glues, preservatives and chemicals used in the manufacturing process impact construction materials, carpets, flooring and furniture. That “new car” smell from these materials just might be quite toxic, particularly in rooms that are not well-vented. These fumes can continue for years, it seems, and their impact will vary depending on the materials. If you care, you can check for low-pollutant materials for furniture and fittings via certifications at the International WELL Building Institute. Want more?

Radon – an invisible, odorless, tasteless radioactive gas released from the normal decay of the elements uranium, thorium, and radium in rocks and soil often seeps up through the ground and diffuses into the air or into buildings that sit above – is another toxic threat that truly depends on location. Radon is a carcinogen, but it is more ubiquitous than you might suspect. The threat is usually higher in single family homes and smaller office buildings, given their proximity to the ground.

According to the National Cancer Institute, “Radon is present in nearly all air. Everyone breathes in radon every day, usually at very low levels. However, people who inhale high levels of radon are at an increased risk of developing lung cancer.

“Radon can enter homes through cracks in floors, walls, or foundations, and collect indoors. It can also be released from building materials, or from water obtained from wells that contain radon. Radon levels can be higher in homes that are well insulated, tightly sealed, and/or built on soil rich in the elements uranium, thorium, and radium. Basement and first floors typically have the highest radon levels because of their closeness to the ground.”

In the end, it’s a combination of caring about the issue, applying commonsense, and getting some serious testing done in and around those offices. It impacts both worker health and productivity, and hence it is an investment in the underlying business itself. New filtration systems vary in costs, but the offset in the quality of the working environment has to be worth it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes the stuff you do not notice, do not even think about, can kill you even if there are simple solutions to the issues.