Sunday Roundup - May 11

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at Obamacare, Republicans' economic myths, Iran's nuclear program, Pope Francis' comments on inequality to UN officials, Obama's last chance on the environment, and Ukraine.

Obamacare
The first open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act is complete and the numbers are in. Total enrollments came to at least 17.8 million, once you add together numbers from Medicaid [expansion], marketplace enrollments and the lowest estimates of how many people bought new ACA-compliant policies outside the exchanges. [NPR Shots blog, May 2]  That didn't stop Republicans from holding yet another hearing to convince people that the program is a failure.  House Republicans brought in insurance executives on Wednesday and tried to get them to say that only 2/3 of the enrollees had paid their premiums.  The executives were having  none of it.  As Salon.com reported: A slate of health insurance industry executives sat down in front of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee for oversight and gave their estimates for how many people who signed up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act actually paid their first month’s premium....Across the board, the health insurance executives testified that the payment rate for premiums was somewhere between 80 and 90 percent, while stressing that these data are preliminary and that outstanding payments are still coming in.  After this latest rebuke to their fact-free view of reality, Republicans are apparently now turning to Plan B - using the Benghazi tragedy as something to stir up their base and raise money.

Economic Myths
Health care is just one of the many issues where Republicans refuse to face reality.  Sean McElwee in an April 28 article in Rolling Stone enumerates the extensive studies that show just about everything the Republicans believe about the economy to be wrong.  After quoting economist John Maynard Keynes famous line "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?", McElwee writes: Sadly, in their quest to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the wealthiest members of society, today's Republicans have held the opposite position – as the evidence has piled up against them, they continue spreading the same myths.  McElwee proceeds to demolish right-wing myths about the minimum wage, the stimulus, taxing the rich, global warming and the Affordable Care Act.  It's a great, quick read and a good antidote to the nonsense that will be spewing in ever greater quantities from Republican mouths and right-wing media as the election season approaches.

Iran's Nuclear Program
John Glaser relates the comments of the former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission in a May 8 post at antiwar.org: The former head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission believes Iran is more than a decade away from a nuclear weapon and that the Islamic Republic may not even want “the bomb,” according to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth (Ynet news)....Brigadier General (res.) Uzi Eilam, who for a decade headed the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, does not believe that Tehran is even close to having a bomb, if that is even what it really aspires to.  Glaser points out that this is consistent with US intelligence estimates and that Eilam is not the first Israeli insider to counter the political rhetoric of the Israeli right and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who have opposed the Iran nuclear negotiations.  Glaser wonders why despite Iran’s cooperation and compliance in unprecedented negotiations with world powers that aim to partially retard and comprehensively limit their civilian nuclear program, Western commentators of all stripes continue to refer to Iran's "nuclear weapons program".


"Legitimate Redistribution of Wealth to the Poor"

The Pope and Un Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
(Vatican Network website)

Pope Francis spoke to UN officials in Rome May 9, urging world leaders to resist the economy of exclusion and serve the poor.  As reported at the Common Dreams website: Pope Francis on Friday issued another indictment of inequality, saying that equitable economic and social progress are only possible through solidarity and generosity, and require the legitimate redistribution of wealth..."A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world's peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society," he continued.  HoundDog's May 9 blog at the DailyKos added:  Pope Francis' authentic Christianity comes as such an unfamiliar shock to many, that Pope Francis has had to deny he was a Marxist. He had a similar message to the World Economic Forum in January...Pope Francis' passion to improve the conditions of the world's poor, support for social justice inspires me....What will right-wing conservatives have to say about this? I can not wait to see how Representative Paul Ryan revises his draconian budget proposal which contains harsh cut backs in programs for the poor. Ryan has proclaimed his budgets are consistent with Catholic teachings, a claim I assert is simply impossible to support now.

Obama and the Environment
Calling it Obama's "last shot" to do something on the environment, Jeff Goodell wrote in an April 23 post in Rolling Stone magazine: In the next few months, [Obama] will take one of the biggest gambles of his presidency by testing the radical proposition that even SUV-loving Americans believe that global warming is real and are ready to do something about it....It's a gamble that could have a profound impact on energy politics, our economy and our ability to stabilize the climate. But if the president is wrong, it could not only cost his party control of the Senate this fall but also blow the last opportunity we have to save ourselves from life on a superheated planet.  Obama will take action in three key areas.

• In June, the EPA is expected to announce new rules for power plants, setting limits on carbon pollution.  Obama will be using his presidential powers to effectively hasten the phase-out of dirty coal from America's energy system. Right now, coal-fired power plants generate about 40 percent of the electricity in the U.S. and are by far the largest single source of heat-trapping gases.  
• A decision on the Keystone XL pipeline has been delayed while lawsuits on the pipeline's route go through the courts.  These are not expected to be resolved until after the November elections.  Goodell writes:  Although no final decision has been made, two high-level sources in the Obama administration told me recently that the president has all but decided to deny the permit for the pipeline.
• The next global climate summit will be in Paris in December 2015.  The objective is an international treaty to reduce carbon pollution.  Climate change, of course, is a global problem, and ultimately what matters is the degree to which Obama's actions in the U.S. inspire the world.  Regarding the international summit, Goodell quotes John Podesta, Obama's point man on climate policy: "Are we going to be on track to come to an agreement that will limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, which is the threshold scientists have set for dangerous climate change?  Our goal is to give leadership and credibility to that effort."

Map is from infoplease.com

Ukraine

Ukraine is moving towards civil war as the government in Kiev cracks down on pro-separatists and as Donetsk, defying both Kiev and Putin, goes ahead with a referendum Sunday to create a quasi-independent statelet there.  [The Guardian, May 10]

Links
Complete text of Pope Francis' comments to UN