Tuesday, January 17, 2017

DDD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR JAN/17/2017


THE MAIN EVENT
  • The world reacts to President Electoral Donald Trump's declaration on Monday, in an interview with British and German newspapers, that NATO is "obsolete", and that "more nations" would soon be following in the UK's footsteps and leaving the European Union.
  • Meanwhile, in Washington DC, the B-Street Band--the Bruce Springsteen cover band that was slated to play at Trump's inauguration party--have dropped out of the gig.
  • A 747 cargo plane from Turkey has gone down on a runway approach in Kyrgyzstan, smashing into a village and killing dozens. 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Last Thursday, in the middle of the night, America's Senate voted 51 to 48:

1. To end coverage for preexisting conditions, veterans benefits, and aid to rural hospitals.
2. To remove discrimination protection for women in healthcare.
3. Against the provision allowing children to remain on their parent's insurance till the age of 26.
4. To cut off funding for the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
5. Against ACA contraceptive coverage and maternity care provision.
6. To direct committees to send budget legislation to defund and repeal the Affordable Care Act.

For those who get health insurance through work, no pre-existing conditions. Lifetime caps for coverage are back for everyone. Real and disastrous actions are being taken that will affect more than just the 20-30 million people who will lose their health care coverage and the 3 million people who will lose their jobs.

Despite their assertions of this being an action to "repeal and replace," no viable alternative plan has been proposed.

The House votes Friday. As of this moment, no replacement exists.

A DEEPER DIVE
  • A Connecticut woman has accused Republican politician Christopher von Keyserling of declaring "I love this new world! I don't have to be politically correct!" before... um... grabbing her by the pussy, then daring her to report him, as nobody would believe her. I realize that this reads like one of those incidents Youtube's army of anti-SJW Redhats would spend hours refuting with such unassailably logical arguments as "Yeah right!" or "As if!" or "SJWs LIE!!!" So it's a good thing the incident was captured on security video. Sorry, Sargon! Too bad for you, Shoe! Upon reviewing the tape, police arrested von Keyserling and charged him with 4th degree sexual assault.
  • Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon and a particularly poetic advocate for space exploration, has passed away.
  • Oh, here's a nice little life affirming story to brighten your day! A mother in Pakistan has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of burning her daughter alive in a so-called "honor killing".
***

SUGGESTED READINGS



1. If you're a fan of Charlie Brooker's amazing TV series Black Mirror, and you like comic books, you're bound to dig this collection of comic book covers based on Black Mirror episodes! Enjoy!

2. And here's a fun, challenging little game for y'all to play while the world comes crashing down around all our heads in this slow motion train wreck of a reality TV series we call LIFE.

3. Philosopher Derek Parfit passed away a couple weeks ago. He was an interesting fellow, a highly regarded philosopher of ethics who couldn't form mental images in his head. Read this New Yorker profile if you'd like to learn a little bit about an intriguing contemporary philosopher.

***
QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Nothing in our system is self-executing. Trump can transgress every law and custom we have until enough people summon the will to stop him."

- one of my favorite Twitter denizens, name o' Southpaw, waxes wise.

DDD EXTRAS
  • If you want to learn about some cool and/or weird things that happened on the 16th day of January, check out our sister-site, Useless Eater Blog.

THE TAKEAWAY

Nope... nothing wrong here!

No comments:

Post a Comment