For aesthetic reasons, I wanted the work to be done in a certain foreign country. After months of researching, I settled on a board-certified doctor. Fluid drained from my tummy tuck and belly button incisions. A local plastic surgeon sent me immediately to an emergency room. Two months after my elective surgery, I cannot stand up straight because of the pain. Thank goodness I have health insurance! The side effects of the meds I’m on are nausea, diarrhea, lack of appetite and drowsiness. Consider who will provide extended care to your kids during periods of hospitalization, how you will pay your astronomical medical bills, and whether you can afford living on reduced or no income for the duration of treatment, which can be several months. Reported by SFGate 4 hours ago.

The post-election confusion over the fate of Obamacare has only complicated the already difficult choices faced by middle class consumers who are worried they can't afford their health insurance options this fall. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Reported by USATODAY.com 22 hours ago.

By Md. Afroz*

The Obama administration has successfully completed its second term in the White House. These two terms in office were never easy for President Barack Obama. He inherited two long costly and unsuccessful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a more radicalised and hostile anti-American world, a weakening economy and troubled domestic politics.

Unlike his predecessor, Obama came to the White House with promises of ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, rebuilding the American economy and guaranteed social justice to the minorities.

The first elected Black President of the US created high expectations among the minorities and other marginalised classes but the result turned to be opposite. The obstructionist attitude of Congress also placed hurdles in front of many of his policies.

The early days of Obama’s tenure witnessed one of the worst economic crises in the history of the US since 1929. The collapse of the stock market, crisis in the area of housing, financial and industrial sectors broke the morale of the government. Unemployment rates soared sky-high. Many believe it was also one of the main reasons for the election of Democrats in the White House.

Obama initiated many measures and recovery plans to curb the growing recession and debt crisis. He injected around $800 billion into the various sectors to rescue the American economy from the verge of collapse.

Federal assistance extensively to the car or motor industry protected many jobs in the United States. The symbol of capitalist might and US industrial power General Motors was also on the verge of bankruptcy. The Obama administration nationalised (partially) the General Motors and saved thousands of jobs of fellow Americans. Gradually, Obama brought the American economy back on its feet.

Another major initiative by his administration was to provide medical insurance to the 20 million American citizens. Despite strong opposition from the Republicans, he successfully implemented the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare”. It was intended to improve health insurance quality and affordability for the deprived sections of American society.

Obama also implemented many provisions of Dream Act, especially related to children and youngsters and stopped deportation of many undocumented individuals.

During his first term in office, Obama cared very little about gay community or same-sex marriages issues, but as he geared up for re-election in 2012, he came out in support of same-sex marriage. When the Supreme Court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage, he welcomed it by calling it “a victory for America”.

In terms of failures, he failed to put a legal cap on American gun culture. The strongest American lobby National Rifle Association defeated all the measures initiated by the government to curb the proliferation of arms.

He also failed to close Guantanamo Bay as promised to his voters. Surprisingly, during his tenure, racial attacks reached the highest in recent past. Many black American took to the streets against the racial violence and atrocities against the other minorities. Obama failed to provide a sense of security to the minorities.

On the foreign policy level also, the Obama administration has had mixed experiences. Obama came to office with the promise of ending the two most expensive wars of American history, Iraq and Afghanistan.

He ended the wars but without any proper solution which resulted in catastrophe, especially in Iraq. Continued drone attacks on civilian targets, in AF-PAK region, brought international criticism and cast doubt on his government’s intention to wage War on Terror.

His Cairo speech on US-Muslim relations in 2009 was intended to bring confidence in the Muslim world but it evaporated soon. Obama’s response to Arab Spring was very inconsistent and confusing. He abandoned one of the best US allies, Hosni Muabarak of Egypt, during the revolution, ignored Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and remained silent over the military coup of army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

In Libya, the US actively participated in NATO-led military actions against the Muammar Gaddafi regime.

The situation became worse than ever and further strengthened the extremist forces providing them with fertile ground to breed.

During the early days of the Syrian uprising, Obama remained aloof. His support to the armed opposition created a very confusing situation. Inappropriate response to the Syrian crisis created a monster like ISIS or Islamic State.

An historical initiative by Obama was to end the more than three-decade-long international isolation of Iran by signing a nuclear deal through a bilateral agreement which included P5+1 members (permanent UN members + Germany).

He also re-established relations with Cuba and visited Havana, for the first time by any US president since 1928.

Relations with Israel remained unpleasant due to his support to normalisation of US-Iranian ties. The two had very substantive differences over the Palestinian issue, settlements in West Bank etc. although Obama signed military aid for 10 years totalling $3.8 billion per year to Israel.

Obama failed to control the Russian aggression of Ukraine over the Crimean issue. It created uncertainty among the European countries over the reliability of the US for European security. Relations with Russia remained hostile throughout his tenure in the White House.

The Chinese aggression in South China Sea continued. US allies in Asia also began to have less faith in the US to safeguard their territorial security. Japan started looking for other alternatives, including raising a national army.

Overall, the Obama presidency remained very difficult and witnessed many significant changes around the globe.

America’s limited military action in Pakistan to eliminate Osama bin Laden boosted the morale of American citizens but soon the Islamic State emerged and threatened lives in America and Europe.

The United States will continue to struggle with the issues of terrorism, inflation and domestic turbulence in the near future. The challenge for the new government is to analyse the failure of the Obama regime on both domestic and foreign level and continue to work where it left.

**Md. Afroz* is a research scholar of International Relations at the Centre for West Asian Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Earlier, he was a South Asia Foundation Fellow at Pondicherry University. He can be reached at afrozkhanjnu@gmail.com Reported by Eurasia Review 11 hours ago.

(Photo: Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP)

Brandi Jensen, center, speaks with an anti-abortion protester at a community rally hosted by the Planned Parenthood Action Council in Salt Lake City on August, 25, 2015.

Anti-abortion advocates are rejoicing in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. In their view, Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that upheld a woman constitutional right to abortion and that barred states from banning the procedure in the first trimester, was on the ballot. In the words of the National Right to Life Committee’s Dave Andrusko: “The pro-life side—the defenders of unborn babies—won.”

Roe v. Wade could be on the chopping block, as could Doe v. Bolton, the Supreme Court case that defined viability as the potential for a fetus to live outside of the womb. As Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins told supporters in an email, “It’s now very easy to imagine a day when Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton will be overturned, and when Planned Parenthood, our nation’s abortion Goliath, will be defunded of half a billion dollars in taxpayer money.”

This is not hyperbole. If Trump’s promises to overturn Roe become reality, proponents of safe and legal abortion will face a dramatically reconfigured political landscape. Overturning Roe would give state legislatures complete control over abortion legislation, and some states, such as Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Texas would almost certainly outlaw the procedure entirely. Clinics and supporters of legal abortion are bracing for the fight of their lives. As Dr. Willie Parker, who chairs the board of Physicians for Reproductive Health, warned in a statement:



Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for 43 years and is supported by the majority of Americans. As physicians, we know all too well the harm women face when they don’t receive the care they need. We have seen how unconstitutional laws that force women to travel to other states for abortion care make this care essentially unobtainable, and it would be unconscionable to erect even more stringent barriers. President-elect Trump’s attack on fundamental rights is unacceptable. We will continue fighting to ensure that our physicians can fulfill their deep, conscientious commitment to providing all women who need it with dignified, compassionate, and appropriate reproductive health care. Our position remains firm: politics should not trump medicine.



Abortion-rights advocates are right to worry. But to win the long game, the reproductive-rights movement’s leaders would be wise to look long and hard at why so many women voted for Trump. It’s easy to get distracted by the frantic tweets of middle-class white women voicing fears that they will lose low- to no-cost contraception and possibly access to IUDs during the Trump administration. But the 53 percent of white women who cast their votes for “The Donald” were less worried about birth control or abortion access than they were about jobs in America.

Female voters’ support for a candidate who had openly insulted women and admitted to sexually assaulting them surprised and baffled many Democrats. But for women facing economic hardship, Trump’s nostalgic rhetoric that seemed to celebrate a time when men were men, and took care of women, found an audience in the Rust Belt. A full 37 percent of mothers of children under 18 are not employed outside of the home, according to Gallup, and to the extent that the women backing Trump lacked college educations, they were more likely to both struggle economically and to identify themselves as politically independent. Gallup findings also show that 45 percent of stay-at-home moms identify as politically independent, compared with only 22 percent who say they are Republican and 30 percent who call themselves Democrats. For women at the lower end of the economic ladder, the notion that their husbands, at least, might themselves find jobs held strong appeal.

This makes sense given how much harder it’s been for women to find full-time work than men, even as female labor force participation has continued to rise. Women are more than twice as likely as men to be employed part-time, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Many women are working part time not by choice, but by necessity. An institute report found that women work part-time because either it’s the only option available to them or because their hours have been cut. These women, like all part-time workers, are far less likely to enjoy such benefits as paid vacation days, paid family or medical leave, paid sick days, health insurance, or employer retirement contributions.

Women also make less money than men. While this isn’t news, the tremendous variance of the wage gap across states may be. In fact, the swing states where Trump narrowly won (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), as well as many of the states that consistently go red, report large gender wage gaps. For example, women only earn 66.7 cents on the dollar compared with men in Louisiana—the worst earnings ratio in the entire country. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, this wage gap won’t disappear anytime soon. Florida is projected to bridge the wage gap first, in 2038—22 years from now. Bridging the wage gap in all 50 states will take even longer. Wyoming, which is projected to be the last state that will bridge the wage gap, is not expected to do so until 2059.

This makes it easier to understand why so many white women voted for a candidate promising to “make America great again,” and improve the wages of their breadwinning husbands. This message was less appealing to women in higher income brackets who voted for Hillary Clinton; women who have a shot at competing with men in the marketplace, and who therefore tend to rally behind politicians and policies promoting work-family balance and the protection of reproductive rights.

Almost since its inception, the women’s movement—and to some degree the reproductive-rights movement at its core—has faced charges of elitism. Fairly or not, critics have faulted the movement for speaking to well-educated, upper-middle-class white women, and leaving everyone else behind. For abortion-rights advocates who now see their most important victories under threat, this election should be a wake-up call. It is clear that reproductive-rights advocates need to do a better job of getting outside of their political silos and talking to the citizens in the suburban and rural areas whom they want to win over.

Advocates of reproductive rights are well positioned to make a strong case to American women across income, education, and geographical divides. Their winning message: There is a direct correlation between safe, accessible reproductive health services and women’s economic prosperity. In this election, too many women failed to connect the dots between their reproductive rights and economic security. It’s up to abortion-rights advocates to do a better job speaking to all women about why both their constitutional rights and their economic futures are now at stake.  Reported by The American Prospect 6 hours ago.

For health insurance startup Oscar Insurance, the election of Donald Trump could be a tough pill to swallow, complicated by ownership ties to the incoming administration that will put it under a bright spotlight. Reported by Wall Street Journal 3 hours ago.

Donald Trump likely won't let Medicaid collapse, but he will vastly change the health insurance program for low-income Americans. Reported by CNNMoney 2 hours ago.

Donald Trump likely won't let Medicaid collapse, but he and the Republicans have some big plans that will vastly change the health insurance program for low-income Americans. Reported by CNNMoney 2 minutes ago.

Study shows significant savings await those willing to shop around Reported by Irish Times 9 minutes ago.

3 WAYS TO COPE WITH TRUMP
by Dimitri Ehrlich

More than half of America is feeling traumatized. Those of us who have been posting repeatedly about the bad things that are unfolding are doing so because we are freaked out. Everyone who cares about science, rationality, women's rights, minority people's rights, and basic common decency--we are all shitting in our pants. And for good reason.

Right now, it feels like there isn't much we can do, what with the senate and congress and White House all in the hands of those who prefer corporate profit to protecting the environment. We literally have a team of racists in the new cabinet. There have been over 300 documented hate crimes in one week since Trump was elected.

So what can we do? Once you realize how cold Canada is most of the year, here are three simple suggestions for coping:

1. RADICAL KINDNESS
One small thing I have been trying to practice is reaching out to strangers and being extra friendly and kind and gentle and making eye contact and smiling. This may seem tiny, but I live in New York where even on a day without any meetings, I interact with dozens of people on the street. From homeless dudes to billionaire bankers, LGBT, white, black, hispanic, Asian--I step out my front door and all of America is there.

So while we can't necessarily prevent some catastrophic policy changes at this moment (including repeal of Roe V Wade, 25 million Americans losing their health insurance, America pulling out of the best climate deal ever signed, and many other terrible things Trump will do) we can control our own minds. And we can radiate to our immediate circle a sense of the opposite of what Trump stands for. We can be kind. We can show an extra little bit of patience. (Small example, but yesterday a homeless guy admired my shirt so I took it off and gave it to him. I don't share this to spotlight my small gesture but to remember we can only respond to this crisis with big-heartedness and love.)

It does make a difference even if we have to do it one person at a time, we can all turn back this tide of negativity and hatred. Because truth is stronger than fear. Also that shirt was my brothers' and it was too big for me.

2. PICK UP THE PHONE
Call your congressman and senator and the mayor and governor and let them know you are not happy with what's going on. Call republican senators and congressmen. Tell them they will lose your vote if they blindly support Trump. (Don't mention the fact that you were never going to vote for them anyway.)

3. REMEMBER HUMOR
I once read about some people who protested at a Klan rally by hiring a mariachi band. We have to be skillful and part of that might be having a sense of humor. It's also good for your health: every time you laugh, your diaphragm plunges down and you breathe deeply. Thanks to Stephen Colbert, I know that the letters that spell TRUMP TOWER can also be arranged to spell the words RECTAL PUMP. Keep this in mind.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 hour ago.

WASHINGTON ― If Republicans make good on their pledges to try and repeal Obamacare, incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says it will only end in disaster for the GOP.

Republicans have voted dozens of times to repeal President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which has extended health insurance to some 20 million Americans since it passed.

Part of the problem for Republicans hoping to end Obama’s signature achievement is that key parts of it are immensely popular, such as allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health plans until they’re 26, and ensuring that people with pre-existing conditions can get insurance.

Republicans, even in the fairly unspecific proposal they rolled out last summer, have said they would preserve some of those Obamacare reforms, although their plans don’t provide equivalent guarantees of coverage, and do not include specific figures about how much the federal government would spend to help people get insurance.

And therein lies the problem for the GOP.

“They’re going to find they have a tiger by the tail because of all the good things in ACA,” Schumer told The Huffington Post, pointing to the 20 million newly insured people, the pre-existing condition rules, the young adult provisions and other parts such as prohibitions against charging women more than men.

“It’s impossible for them to keep those — which they say they want to keep — without keeping the ACA,” Schumer said. “They’re going to be like the dog that caught the bus.”

Schumer likely has a point. Many of the parts of the Affordable Care Act that the GOP wants to dump are the cost controls and provisions that pay for the law. If the funding side of the law is eliminated, it becomes very difficult to sustain any of the reforms. Similarly, without a penalty that forces healthy people to pay for coverage, it’s hard to require insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), who will have a key role in authoring repeal legislation since much of it concerns taxes, told HuffPost recently that the GOP does intend to keep the popular provisions.

He acknowledged that it’s costly, but like the GOP’s plan itself, he offered few details about how the popular items would be funded, beyond pointing to a theoretical increase in competition and a GOP proposal to cap existing tax breaks on some high-quality employer-based health plans.

“Since we’re doing away with all the taxes and mandates, unlocking that tax break and giving people freedom to use it to choose a plan that’s right for them is really the key to the Republican proposal,” Brady said.

Schumer thinks the reason there are so few specific numbers is that once real numbers are available, it will be obvious how much damage the Republican repeals will do to Americans.

“None of them have been able to come up with a plan that keeps all the parts that are popular without keeping ACA,” Schumer said. “They’re going to be so stuck. I look forward to them marching into that issue. They will regret the day they did it.”-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

The payment card industry (PCI) is fighting recurring data breaches worldwide that affect credit card issuers, organizations and merchants. Small and medium size businesses are most vulnerable leading Payscout to team up with Protocol, a data security company, to fight the breaches together.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) November 22, 2016

Over 90% of data breaches involve Small and Medium-size Business (SMB) organizations. Data breaches result in increased global economic debt and the reality is hackers attack anyone, with little to no exceptions. Payscout’s recent partnership with Protocol involves working together to establish safety for their clients via the requirements for PCI compliance needs.3

All organizations that store, process or transmit cardholder data are members of the Payment Card Industry (PCI).1 The governing body is the PCI Standards Security Council (SSC) that includes the major card brands – MasterCard Worldwide, American Express, Visa International, Discover Financial Services, and Japan Credit Bureau (JCB).

In 2006, the major card brands took a new approach to card data security by creating PCI SSC. The new standards, known as PCI Compliance, are now required every year by all organizations involved in the handling, processing, management or storage of cardholder data. The standards have assisted merchants globally with best business practices to better secure customer cardholder data.

Cleveland Brown, CEO of Payscout, a global payment processing provider, says, “PCI Compliance is important to everyone in the payment processing industry. With data breaches increasing each year, it’s imperative that both merchant and customer alike perform due diligence to ensure they are not enabling cybercriminal activity.”2

The PCI SSC offers these steps to assist any size company:· Be aware of data breaches and how they happen
· Perform an internal Risk Assessment
· Create and follow a data breach prevention Security Policy
· Get a professional with proper credentials to assist you

By following this guidance, any size company is vitally assisted in helping keep its cyber defenses primed against attacks aimed at stealing its respective cardholder data.

Protocol President and CEO Giles Witherspoon-Boyd said, "Protocol is proud of our partnership with Payscout, one of the fastest-growing global payment providers. The rapid growth and global expansion of Payscout serves as evidence of their commitment to the success of entrepreneurs. Our partnership is driven by shared guiding principles of integrity, social responsibility, thought leadership, and innovation to support entrepreneurs as they pursue their dreams. Protocol is dedicated to empowering Payscout merchants with innovative data security tools and unique, educational experiences."

Most small merchants can use a self-validation tool to assess their level of cardholder data security. PCI SSC also offers a valuable Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) that includes a series of questions for each applicable PCI Data Security Standard requirement. Different SAQs are available for a variety of merchant environments.

Brown emphasized that Payscout helps build a strong data security foundation by providing education on ‘best practices’ based on how each client handles and processes cardholder data. “Cybercriminals are very sophisticated,” said Brown. “They are looking for easy targets, and this foundation helps insure our clients, and their customers’, safety.”

About Payscout, Inc.:

“Payscout Supports the Entrepreneurial Dream One Transaction at a Time.”

Payscout is a global payment processing provider covering six continents by connecting merchants and consumers via credit, debit, ATM and alternative payment networks. What differentiates Payscout is its mission “to support the entrepreneurial dream one transaction at a time.” Payscout achieves this by being a thought leader in the payments industry. Its “Go Global Now” technology platform gives merchants instant access to 100+ countries, billions of consumers and trillions of dollars. Payscout offers payment processing solutions for brick-and-mortar and eCommerce transactions, and has earned acclaim as a new-generation provider of merchant banking services, specializing in online/eCommerce retailers with a predominant proportion of card-not-present (CNP) transactions; it is one of the few providers to deliver a true global payment solution that encompasses all merchant risk verticals. Customers can access Payscout’s credit card processing services via a state-of-the-art, web-based user portal and through direct interaction with highly-trained experts. In addition to supporting thousands of clients across a multitude of industries and all 50 American states, Payscout maintains global partnerships with VISA USA, Bank of America Merchant Services, VISA Europe, VISA Latin America, VISA Asia Pacific, MasterCard Worldwide, China Union Pay, Deutsche Bank, First Data and Payscout Brazil. Payscout was recognized as one of America’s fastest-growing privately-held companies in 2014 and 2015, ranking #2,416 in 2014 and #434 in 2015, on Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 500/5000 list. Within the financial services industry, Payscout placed #140 in 2014 and #24 in 2015. For more information, visit http://www.payscout.com.

About Protocol:

"Your Path To Compliance"

Protocol is a data security company built on the belief that motivated individuals empowered with the right tools can make a difference in their lives and communities. We are dedicated to helping organizations of all sizes, validate and maintain PCI compliance and eliminate unnecessary business risks.

Protocol is a PCI-ISA Sponsoring Organization, PCI-QIR, Visa certified Service Provider and Participating Organization with the PCI SSC. Mr. Witherspoon-Boyd is a certified PCI-ISA, PCI-QIR, PCIP and member of the PCI-SSC's global SMB task force, helping small businesses to increase data security, technical knowledge and PCI compliance.

In addition to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), Particular areas of focus are the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with many others to follow. For more information, visit http://protocolpci.com/.

1.     N.p., n.d. Web. http://www.payscout.com “What is PCI Compliance?”
2.     N.p., n.d. Web. ProtocolPCIOutline.pdf
3.    "Places." Facebook N.p., n.d. Web. ProtocolPCI.com
4.     "Official PCI Security Standards Council Site.” N.p., n.d. Web. http://www.PCISecurityStandards.org Reported by PRWeb 2 days ago.

Document Outlines Positive Policy Agenda for Energy & Environment, Education, Budget & Taxes, Health Care, and Constitutional Reform

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (PRWEB) November 22, 2016

The Heartland Institute today released an “Action Plan for President Trump,” a list of 34 free-market policy recommendations on domestic policy. Many of the recommendations, according to The Heartland Institute, can be implemented immediately – and all would increase individual liberty, promote more rapid economic growth, and restore the proper balance of power among the federal government, state governments, and the people.

“President-elect Trump has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reverse the tide of debt, excessive regulation, and crony socialism that has engulfed the nation since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008,” said Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute.

“If President Trump surrounds himself with strong leaders dedicated to reducing the size and power of government – to ‘draining the swamp’ as he has said – then there is hope that the proper balance of power between branches of the national government, between the national and state governments, and between government and the people can be restored.”

Heartland’s entire plan can be viewed here.

For more comments or to book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at media@heartland.org and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.

Some highlights from The Heartland Institute’s Action Plan for President Trump:

Energy & Environment

Withdraw from the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the more recent Paris Accord and end funding for the United Nations’ biased climate change programs, in particular the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Green Climate Fund.

Replace EPA with a Committee of the Whole of the 50 state environmental protection agencies. Those agencies already have primary responsibility for implementing environmental laws passed by Congress and regulations written by EPA.

Education

Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. If this is not politically possible, then block-grant most or all of the department’s funding back to the states. Preserve and restore state and local autonomy by repealing federal regulations and red tape attached to federal funds.

Withdraw the national government’s endorsement of Common Core State Standards by ending government support of the failed experiment and de-linking federal funding currently attached to it.

Budget & Taxes

Support a plan similar to the Ryan Roadmap or Path to Prosperity plans to balance the budget in 10 years. A balanced budget is absolutely essential if we are to stop digging even deeper the hole created by recent massive deficits.

Support the “A Better Way” personal income tax reform plan (simplification and flattening) to dramatically simplify the tax code and reduce rates for most Americans, fueling more work and wealth creation.

Health Care

Repeal and replace Obamacare with long-debated policies that genuinely reduce health care costs and expand access to care – such as a universal health insurance tax credit, block-granting Medicaid to the states, risk pools for the uninsurable, and expanded health savings accounts (HSAs).

Make prescription drugs more affordable by giving patients, with the approval of their doctors, access to new drugs as soon as clinical trials show they are safe but before they pass remaining tests for efficacy. Adopt the plan described in Free to Choose Medicine by Bart Madden.

Constitutional Reform

Repeal many of Obama’s executive orders and all of them that stretch or exceed the constitutional authority of the Office of the President. Executive orders ripe for repeal include those affecting environmental protection, trade, health care, immigration, and foreign policy.

Encourage Congress or the states to approve a constitutional amendment repealing the Sixteenth Amendment (income tax); support constitutional amendments imposing term limits on members of Congress and for allowing a majority of states to nullify any federal regulation.

The Heartland Institute is a 32-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000. Reported by PRWeb 2 days ago.

The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said in the report provided to The Associated Press that the state used inflated population figures to claim funding, effectively saying every New Yorker would benefit from coverage through the exchange. At issue is part of the $571 million the federal government gave New York in grants from 2010 through 2014 to get the exchange up and running, enroll uninsured people in "qualified health plans" and encourage participation in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. [...] the state health department's most recent report on the exchange showed that as of Jan. 1 just under 2 million people were enrolled through Medicaid, 215,000 children through Child Health Plus and 380,000 through what's called the "Essential Plan" for low-income people not qualified for Medicaid. "New York State of Health strongly disagrees with the inspector general's finding that federal grant funds were misallocated to exchange activities rather than to other public health insurance programs, and that any refund is due to CMS," the health department said in a statement Monday. Reported by SeattlePI.com 2 days ago.

1: The American Majority

Hillary Clinton won the majority of votes in this year’s presidential election.

The loser, for the majority of voters, will now be a minority president-elect. Don’t let anyone forget it. Keep referring to Trump as the minority president, Mr. Minority and the overall Loser. Constant repetition, with discussion in the media and over social media, questions the legitimacy of the minority president to ignore the values of the majority. The majority, at the very least, needs to keep its values in the public eye and view the minority president’s action through majority American values.

The polls failed and the nation needs to know why. The pollsters and pundits have not given a satisfactory answer.

I will argue that the nature of mind is not a mere technical issue for the cognitive and brain sciences, but that it had everything to do with the outcome of the 2016 election — and the failure of the pollsters, the media, and Democrats to predict it. They were not alone. The public needs to understand better how the human mind works in general — but especially in politics. There is a lot to know. Let us go step by step.

*2: The Mind *

I am a cognitive scientist. I study the human mind. Our minds are neural minds. The mind is physical, constituted by the neural circuitry of our brains and bodies. Most thought is unconscious, since we don’t have conscious access to our neural circuitry. Conscious thought is a small part of thought — estimates by neuroscientists vary between a general “most” to as much as 98 percent, with consciousness as the tip of the mental iceberg. We do know that people tend to make decisions unconsciously before becoming consciously aware of them. How the neural unconscious functions in decision-making is vitally important for politics.

*3. Worldviews and Worldview Differences*

Our fixed worldviews are made up of complex ideas carried out by relatively fixed neural circuitry. Our worldviews determine how we think the world operates, as well as how we think it should operate. In short, our worldviews are constituted by neural circuitry for what we understand as normal, and what we take as right and wrong.

There are, of course, radical differences in worldview, and we see those differences in politics, religion, culture, and so on.

Here is the crucial fact about worldview differences: *We can only understand what our brain circuitry allows us to understand. *If facts don’t fit the worldviews in our brains, the facts may not even be noticed — or they may be puzzling, or ignored, or rejected outright, or if threatening, attacked. All of these happen in politics. A global warming denier does not say, “I am denying science.” The facts just don’t fit his worldview and don’t make sense to him or her. In short, the neural system characterizing a dominant fixed worldview will act as a Neural Filter, letting in only what fits.

Consider some all-too-real examples.
·
If you have an evangelical religious belief that the End Days are near, when the believers will be swept up to Heaven and the evil people left behind destroyed. The issue will be whether you will be saved, not the planet.·
Suppose you believe, as many do, that laissez-faire capitalism is both natural and supremely moral. The most important, natural, and right thing to do would be to maximize your profits, and those of the firms you invest in, while you are alive on earth. Then it will make sense to maximize fossil fuel profits. Passing them up for the sake of the planet will not make sense.·
Suppose you are a small-time rancher with a small herd of cattle in a remote area of a red state, living next to a federal nature preserve where there are endangered species. You work hard, have a hard time making a living, cannot afford expensive feed for you cattle, and think you should be able to have your cattle graze on the “unused” publicly-owned land next door so you can make ends meet. So you just tear down the fence and drive your cattle in. The feds tell you to leave, but the Republican governor tells the state police to leave you alone, and the Republican elected judge rules for you over the government. You feel morally vindicated.
*You can only make sense of what the neural circuitry characterizing your worldview allows you to make sense of*.

What about undeniable all-important facts that violate one’s moral worldview, like the Trump election? That can result in shock, physical shock. We will discuss why below.

*4. What Is A Political Moderate?*
·
A moderate has a major worldview and an opposite minor worldview.·
A moderate conservative has mostly conservative views, but some progressive views.·
A moderate progressive has mostly progressive views, but some conservative views.·
There is no political ideology shared by all moderates.·
There is no consistent political “middle.”
*5. Bi-conceptuals*

In order to be a moderate, you have to hold two opposing worldviews at once, but apply them to different issues. How can you have two opposing worldviews in the same brain, when each is a fixed neural circuit? Easy. They “inhibit” each other: turning one on turns the other off. This is called mutual inhibition. It is common in the brain.

Political change has worked through bi-conceptualism — through moving minor worldviews in a more major direction, by “strengthening” minor worldviews until they become major.

*6. Frames*

A worldview is an overall conceptual framework you use to understand the world. It is made up of mental “frames,” which are used to understand situations. A restaurant frame contains waiters/waitresses, customers, tables and chairs, a chef, a menu, food, a check, and so on, together with expectations about what each will do. Political worldviews are complexes of political frames that fit together coherently.

Words have meanings that are defined relative to conceptual frames. If you hear “Here’s the dinner menu,” you know you’re in a restaurant. If you hear, “What’s the easiest way to eliminate the Department of Education?” you know you’re with the Trump transition team.

*7. Language in Politics*

In politics, institutions, and cultural life, words tend not to be neutral. Instead their meanings are defined with respect to political worldviews. There are conservative and liberal vocabularies. “Save the planet!” is liberal. “Energy independence” is a conservative ‘dog whistle.’ It means dig coal and drill for oil and gas, even on public lands, and don’t invest seriously in solar and wind. Some might think those are politically neutral expressions. If you take them literally and ignore worldview differences, you might think everyone should want to save the planet and everyone should want energy independence. Liberals want literal energy independence, but through sustainable energy like solar and wind. Conservatives don’t believe in man-made climate change and want energy independence through maximizing coal, gas, and oil. Politically charged meanings put the other side in a bind. The opposition cannot answer directly. You won’t hear conservatives say “I don’t want to save the planet,” nor liberals say, “I’m against energy independence.” Instead they have to change the frame.

In general, negating a frame just activates the frame and makes it stronger. I wrote a book called Don’t Think of an Elephant! to make that point. Liberals are often caught in this trap. If a conservative says, “we should have tax relief,” she is using the metaphor that taxation is an affliction that we need relief from. If a liberal replies, “No, we don’t need tax relief,” she is accepting the idea that taxation is an affliction. The first thing that is, or should be, taught about political language is not to repeat the language of the other side or negate their framing of the issue.

The Clinton campaign consistently violated the lesson of Don’t Think of an Elephant! They used negative campaigning, assuming they could turn Trump’s most outrageous words against him. They kept running ads showing Trump forcefully expressing views that liberals found outrageous. Trump supporters liked him for forcefully saying things that liberals found outrageous. They were ads paid for by the Clinton campaign that raised Trump’s profile with his potential supporters!

The basic lesson comes from a legendary story in framing circles. Lesley Stahl interviewed Ronald Reagan, bringing up stinging criticisms of Reagan. The morning after the interview ran on TV, Reagan’s chief of staff called Stahl and thanked her for the interview. “But I was criticizing him,” Stahl replied. The response was jovial, “But if you turned off the sound, he looked terrific. The presidential image is what will be remembered.”

The more neural circuits are activated, the stronger their synapses get, and so the more easily they can be activated again and the more likely they will become permanent. The more the public hears one side’s language, or sees one side’s images, the more that side’s frames will be activated, and the more that side’s worldview will be strengthened in the brains of those who watch and listen. This is why political communication systems matter.

Think for a moment of the conservative Leadership Institute’s 20^th anniversary boast that they had trained over 159,000 local conservatives spokespeople from all over America in 20 years. Think of 159,000 trained conservative local leaders and spokespeople spread over all those red states on the 2016 presidential electoral map, in addition to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. That is how working white men and women, who might have started out as liberals or moderates years ago, gradually became more conservative by hearing conservative language day after day.

And it was through such repetitive exposure every day to Trump’s forceful language and forceful image, through free media and social media, that a great many people were affected.

*8. Metaphors We Vote By*

Much of unconscious thought is metaphorical. Not fanciful or “poetic” metaphors, but everyday ones we generally don’t notice. We understand More as being Up, as in “Turn up the radio,” which does not mean to throw it up to the ceiling. We understand achieving goals as reaching destinations: “You’ll get there. There’s nothing standing in your way. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” The many metaphorical expressions reveal the presence of a conceptual metaphor, a mode of metaphorical thought. There’s nothing special about metaphorical thought. Given commonplace experience in the world and given a neural system, thousands of everyday metaphorical thoughts arise spontaneously. It happens around the world, and it mostly goes unnoticed, carried out by your neural system.

Certain kinds of metaphorical thought, which go largely unnoticed, are central to our politics, as we shall see.

*9: Values Over Demographics*

Briefly, the polls failed because they work by demography, using census data, and other readily accessible data. The census tells us where people live, their age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, marital status, income level, etc. These are objective data, and this kind of data is easy to get and sample. But demographic data leaves out what is most important in elections and in political polling generally: Values! One’s sense of right and wrong. That omission was crucial in this election.

It is not just crucial in polling. It is also crucial in journalism. Most people in the press also talk as if demography were the gold standard of political truth: the suburban educated women, the Hispanics, the white working class — all defined by demographics. But the relationship between voting and demographics is not one-to-one. This election showed that in spades. Many progressives think the same way: Demography and issues — issue by issue. Democrats looking for donors will ask, “What is your most important issue?” Instead, the *values* that define one’s deepest identity are what matters most. Polling issue-by-issue misses the overall values that are all too often primary in elections.

Indeed, the very question, “What is your most important issue?” almost guarantees that climate change will barely enter the electoral debate. What comes to mind when the question is asked are relatively immediate concerns — jobs, health care, immigration, poverty, student debt, and so on. Global warming is not seen as imminent — it comes in about number 20 on the list of voters’ “most important issues.”

Part of the reason is that the causal link between global warming and weather disasters is not direct, but is a result of systemic factors in the ecosystem. High temperatures over the Pacific produce more evaporation, which means high energy water molecules go into the air, blow northeast and in winter come down as snow in Washington — more than ever before! The weather disasters throughout the country — severe hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires, — are often systemically caused by global warming and they should be named as such — a global warming hurricane, a climate change flood, a global warming drought, global warming fires — with illustrations of the systemic steps involved in the cause. To establish a frame, you need a name.

I’ve been studying such matters from the perspective of the neural mind for two decades, starting with Moral Politics (now in its Third Edition) and in seven books and dozens of papers, as well as with those doing survey and experimental research. Because this perspective has not been part of the public discourse, it is worth going over in some detail.

*10: All Politics Is Moral*

When a political leader proposes a policy, the assumption is that the policy is right, not wrong or morally irrelevant.

No political leader says, “Do what I say because it’s evil. It’s the devil’s work, but do it!” Nor will a political leader say, “My policy proposal is morally irrelevant. It’s neither right nor wrong. It doesn’t really matter. Just do it.”

When political leaders have opposing policies, that means they have opposing moral worldviews.

*11. Why Do Voters Vote Their Values*

Everyone likes to think of himself or herself as a good person. That means that your moral system is a major part of your identity — who you most deeply are. Voting against your moral identity would be a rejection of self.

That is why poor conservatives vote against their material interests. They are voting for their moral worldviews to dominate, and for public respect for their values.

*12. The Mystery*

In the 1990s, as part of my research in the cognitive and brain sciences, I undertook to answer a question in my field: How do the various policy positions of conservatives and progressives hang together? Take conservatism: What does being against abortion have to do with being for owning guns? What does owning guns have to do with denying the reality of global warming? How does being anti-government fit with wanting a stronger military? How can you be pro-life and for the death penalty? How do these conservative positions make sense together? Progressives have the opposite views. How do their views hang together?

*13. The Nation as Family Metaphor*

The answer came from a realization that we tend to understand the nation metaphorically in family terms: We have founding fathers. We send our sons and daughters to war. We have homeland security. The conservative and progressive worldviews dividing our country can most readily be understood in terms of moral worldviews that are encapsulated in two very different idealizations of family life: The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and the Strict Father family (conservative).

*14. Why Idealizations of the Family?*

What do social issues and their politics have to do with idealizations of the family? We are first governed in our families, and so we grow up understanding governing institutions in terms of the governing systems of families. Those governing institutions can be classrooms, teams, armies, churches, businesses, and so on. Nurturant and Strict family models pervade our culture.

*15. Idealized Nurturant Families*

Nurturance starts with empathy. In nurturant families, caring for a child requires knowing what the child needs and wants. It requires open, two-way conversation. Parents have to take care of themselves if they are to care of their children. For their well-being, children need clear limits and guidelines (Don’t put your hand on a hot stove. You’ll get burned.), personal responsibilities (“Brush your teeth”), and family responsibilities (“Take care of your sister. Set the table.”) Children also need to empathize with others and act on that empathy. If not, as Barack Obama said in his 2008 Father’s Day speech, we’ll have a generation of people who don’t care about anybody else. Children also need to be fulfilled in life, and for this they need education, exercise, good health, a connection to nature, and a warm social life. And if some children require special attention, either because they are very young, or ill, or injured, or have other inherent problems, the rest of the family has to step up to help out.

*16. Nurturance and Progressive Values*

These family values map via metaphor onto progressive political values: Citizens care about other citizens and act through their government to provide public resources for all, for both businesses and individuals. That’s how America started. The genius of the founding fathers centered on public resources. The public resources used by businesses were not only roads and bridges, but public education, a national bank, a patent office, courts for business cases, interstate commerce support, and of course the criminal justice system. From the beginning, *the* *private depended on public resources* — both private enterprise and private life. In private life, there were laws to protect freedoms and basic rights, as well as resources like police protection, public education, a national currency, access to banks for loans, courts for redress of grievances, and goods made available through interstate commerce.

Over time, public resources have grown to include sewers, water and electricity, government protections in the form of “regulations” to keep unscrupulous corporations from harming the public, and to keep banks, mortgage holders, and investment houses from cheating the public. As commerce grew, the need for protective regulations grew into whole regulatory agencies of government. Modern life now depends on even more public resources, such as research universities and research support: computer science (via the NSF), the internet (from ARPA), pharmaceuticals and modern medicine (via the NIH), satellite communication (NASA and NOOA), and GPS systems and cell phones (satellite systems maintained with security and unbelievable precision by the Defense Department).

Private enterprise and private life utterly depend on public resources. Not on “the government.” But on “the public.” What these public resources provide is freedom: freedom to start and run a business, and freedom in private life. You’re not free if you are not educated; your possibilities in life are limited. You’re not free if you have cancer and no health insurance. You’re not free if you have no income — or not enough for basic needs. And if you work for a large company, you may not be free without a union. Unions free workers from corporate servitude — free working people to have a living wage, safety on the job, regular working hours, a pension, health benefits, dignity.

All of this arises from basic progressive values — empathy and care for one another — at the level of the nation.

*17. The Strict Father and Conservative Values*

In the strict father family, father knows best. He knows right from wrong and has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse do what he says, which is taken to be what is right. Many conservative spouses accept this worldview, uphold the father’s authority, and are strict in those realms of family life that they are in charge of.

When his children disobey, it is the strict father’s moral duty to punish them painfully enough so that, to avoid punishment, they will obey him (do what is right) and not just do what feels good. Through physical discipline they are supposed to become disciplined, internally strong, and able to prosper in the external world. What if they don’t prosper? That means they are not disciplined, and therefore cannot be moral, and so deserve their poverty.

This reasoning shows up in conservative politics in which the poor are seen as lazy and undeserving, and the rich as deserving their wealth. Responsibility is thus taken to be personal responsibility not social responsibility. What you become is only up to you; society has nothing to do with it. You are responsible for yourself, not for others, who are responsible for themselves.

*18. The Moral Hierarchy*

The strict father logic extends further. The basic idea is that authority is justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a world ordered by nature, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate.

The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures, America above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women, whites above Non-whites, Christians above non-Christians, straights above gays.

On the whole, conservative policies flow from the strict father worldview and this hierarchy. Trump is an extreme case, though very much in line with conservative policies.

*19. Strict Father Complexities*

There are political policies that follow from strict father morality. As we discuss them, please bear in mind that many if not most conservatives are bi-conceptual, that is, they have a strict father major worldview and a nurturant minor worldview on some issues or other.

*In-Group Nurturance: *More importantly, it is common for conservatives to show in-group nurturance — care for members of some in-group. What counts as an in-group varies.
·
The minimal in-group is your family.·
The in-group can be members of your church or your religion — and the church or religion may offer help to the needy members of the church or religion.·
The in-group can be in the military, with military family getting housing, education, health care, and cheaper goods on the military base, and where platoon-members (“bands of brothers”) are taken care of and never left behind.·
In small towns all over America where people are mostly conservative, the in-group can be community members and whoever lives in the town. The small-town nurturance for long-term neighbors can override differences in politics, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and so on.
This means that in national or state politics, one may be a typical conservative, but those political views can be adjusted locally by moderation or in-group nurturance. Part of the conservative revolution of 1994 was the move by Newt Gingrich to rid the Republican party of moderates by running extreme conservatives against them in primaries.

It is also important to remember that moderate progressives are biconceptuals, that they have a minor conservative worldview on a certain issues, and that they can be made more conservative by repeated conservative language.

*20. Strict Father Political Policies*

The most obvious strict father political policies are the following, group by group.

*White Evangelical Christians: *

Right-wing white evangelicals offer you a strict father God you are to fear — who can send you to burn in hell for eternity. Sinners get a second chance, to become “born again.” After that, sinners who don’t follow his commandments will burn in hell. Those who follow the commandments will be “saved.”

The moral hierarchy creates a white evangelical politics:      
·
God above Man: Churches get major tax breaks, and seek public funding for religious schools.·
Men Above Women: Men get to decide on reproduction. Against Planned Parenthood, abortion, and morning-after pills. For laws requiring spousal and parental notification prior to abortion.·
Marriage between a man and a woman: no gay marriage.·
Child-rearing should follow the strict father model.·
Religious Christmas scenes in public places funded by public money.·
Large crosses erected on public land.·
The Ten Commandments in courtrooms.·
Political candidates must proclaim their religion.
*Laissez-Faire Free Marketeers:*

Corporations and those who own and run them are metaphorical strict fathers. Corporations are “persons” who can engage in political lobbying, who seek to maximize their profits, set rules for their employees and can punish them in various ways, ultimately by firing them or laying them off.

Corporate conservatives want laissez-faire free markets, where wealthy people and corporations set market rules in their favor with minimal government regulation and enforcement. They see taxation not as investment in publicly provided resources for all citizens, but as government taking their earnings (their private property) and giving the money through government programs to those who don’t deserve it. This is the source of establishment Republicans’ anti-tax and shrinking government views. This version of conservatism is quite happy with outsourcing to increase profits by sending manufacturing and many services abroad where labor is cheap, with the consequence that well-paying jobs leave America and wages are driven down here. They profit from many cheap imports important for business profits, such as steel, building materials, electronic parts, etc.

They also want to privatize public resources as much as possible: eliminate public schools, publicly financed health insurance, drill and mine on public lands, build private highways, and so on.

*The White Working Class: *

Many members of the white working class have strict father morality, even those in unions. Many have their strict father views limited to their home life, but many have them as a major worldview. As conservatives, they believe in individual responsibility, not government “handouts;” they may resent union dues and prefer “right to work” laws; and they may implicitly accept the moral hierarchy and believe they are superior to non-whites, Latinos, non-Christians, and gays and should be in a higher financial and social position. Conservative women may accept their position as inferior to their men, but still see themselves above the rest of the hierarchy. The white working class has been hit hard by income inequality, globalization and outsourcing, computerization, the decline of coal mining, low-wage chain stores driving out small business, and if older, ageism. They are largely uneducated and see themselves as looked down on by the educated “elite” who tell them that everyone should go to college to merit today’s jobs. They also resent “political correctness,” which directs resources to those who need them even more, but are lower on the conservative moral hierarchy. They want the respect of being on the right side of politics, of having their moral views— and hence their deepest identity — confirmed.

*Political Correctness*

Nurturant parent morality puts a premium on helping those in the family who need it the most: infants, sick or injured children, and so on.

In liberal politics, those lower on the conservative moral hierarchy are seen to have been victimized by those who are more powerful. The result is a reverse moral hierarchy, in which the less powerful are more deserving of assistance than the more powerful: the poor more than the non-poor, non-white more than white, women more than men, immigrants more than residents, and so on.

The white working class calls this view “political correctness.” It leaves out poor whites, especially in non-urban areas, who have had to face the problems of a culture that, as we have just seen, has been devastated by corporate greed (income inequality, globalization and outsourcing, computerization, and low-wage chain stores driving out small business) and factors like the decline of coal mining.

All three of these groups — evangelicals, corporatists, and the white working class correctly saw the Supreme Court issue as central to upholding their values across the board, on all issues.

*The Main Issue Is Identity*

For each type of conservative, the main issue is one’s identity, which is defined by strict father values. One can have a religious version, a business version, or a working class resentment version, but in each case self-identity is the issue. That is why those who voted for Trump didn’t care if he constantly lied, or if he treated women outrageously, or if he was ignorant of foreign policy. What mattered was the voter’s moral identity, the voter’s sense of right and wrong, the voter’s self-respect as a conservative.

Trump and those in his campaign understood this. Those in the Democratic party, the media, and pollsters did not.

*21. Why The Moral Indicators Were Missed*

Corporatist Republican leaders tended to study business economics in college, and as a result studied marketing. Marketing professors study the mind and how people really think: using frames, metaphors, narratives, images, and emotions — mostly applied to advertising. These Republican leaders learned how to market their ideas.

Progressives who go to college and are interested in politics tend to study political science, law, public policy, and economic theory. Those courses of study almost never include cognitive science, neuroscience, and cognitive linguistics — and so progressives interested in politics don’t learn about the Neural Mind, that is, about unconscious thought, frames, conceptual metaphors, moral worldviews, the role of language, etc.

Instead, they are taught a version of Enlightenment reason, following René Descartes around 1650, namely:
·
that all thought is conscious·
that reason is a matter of logic, as in a mathematical proof·
that since reason defines what means to be human, all rational people reason according to logic·
and therefore, if you give everybody the facts, they ought to all reason to the right conclusion.
This is an utterly false theory of reason — taught as rationality and “critical thinking.” It was vitally important during the Enlightenment because it taught that people could think for themselves and did not have to follow the thinking the kings and religious leaders. One might like it to be true, but it isn’t.

*22. False Reason, False Analyses*

The polls, the media, and the Democratic Party all failed to understand conservative values and their importance. They failed to understand unconscious thought and moral worldviews. While hailing science in the case of climate change, they ignored science when it came to their own minds. The pollsters, given easy access to demographics via census and other data, came up with their own view of mind, that demographics reflects public opinion, and that public opinion understood this way, drives elections. This amounts to a strange demographic theory of mind, that demography determines thought.

The demographic theory of mind is naturally paired with the view that people simply vote their material interests, that their interests vary, and hence that issues are separable. This is widely assumed, despite the well-known facts that poor conservatives and rich liberals often vote against their material interests.

But it does make polling — and fundraising — easier. Just ask people what their most important issues are, or to what degree that are for or against a particular policy.

*The Justifications*

This type of polling has its justifications.

First, people with similar worldviews can tend to cluster in some demographic categories.

Second, most of polling is done by advertisers selling products. If the polls miss by differences as small as those between Trump and Clinton, they are doing well by their clients.

Incidentally, polling methodology used in advertising leads to the view that candidates are products, to be sold like cars, pharmaceuticals, and beauty products, and have to establish a recognizable, popular brand.

It is true that moral worldviews generalize over specific issues, and so a specific issue can activate a general worldview. But the general moral worldview is not studied or discussed.

*An Alternative*

There is a way out that may be simple, but needs to be tested. One can include questions about values, even if the values are unconscious. The technique was developed by Elisabeth Wehling, Matt Feinberg (U. of Toronto), Laura Saslow (U. of Michigan), and myself. It was based on the conceptual metaphor of the Nation As Family, with two types of families — strict and nurturant. Technically, a conceptual metaphor is a neural mapping, linking the frame structure of one domain (e.g., the values of a type of family) to another domain (e.g., political views about the nation).

Beginning with the theory proposed in my 1996 book, Moral Politics, we constructed two mappings linking family values to political values. We separated the family values from the political values and randomized each. We then asked, in surveys and experiments, the randomized questions to see if the correlations fit the predications of the mappings.

The correlations were overwhelming, and are reported in Elisabeth Wehling’s 2013 doctoral dissertation, A nation under joint custody: How conflicting family models divide US-politics. The basic idea is that of a Moral Politics Scale that can be used in surveys, and that might be included in future polls. Questions about family values can be used as indicators of the moral values used in political worldviews. Other studies have been done and are in the publication pipeline.

A few early studies do not, and should not, create a field, but it is a beginning. Polling studies using these ideas need to be done.

23. Clever Trump

Democrats and most of the media looked upon Trump as a clown, a dimwit, a mere jerk, a reality show star, who did not understand the issues and who could not possibly win when he was insulting so many demographic groups. I am anything but a Trump fan, but I estimated that he would get about 47 percent of the vote. Although I was sure he wouldn’t quite win, I kept warning people that he could, especially given the Democrats’ failure to understand the role of values.

Nine months before the election I wrote about how Trump used the brains of people listening to him to his advantage. Here is a recap of how Trump does it, with examples taken from his campaign.

Unconscious thought works by certain basic mechanisms. Trump uses them instinctively to turn people’s brains toward what he wants: Absolute authority, money, power, and celebrity.

The mechanisms are:

*1. Repetition.* Words are neurally linked to the circuits that determine their meaning. The more a word is heard, the more the circuit is activated and the stronger it gets, and so the easier it is to fire again. Trump repeats. Win. Win, Win. We’re gonna win so much you’ll get tired of winning.

*2. Framing:* Crooked Hillary. Framing Hillary as purposely and knowingly committing crimes for her own benefit, which is what a crook does. Repeating makes many people unconsciously think of her that way, even though she has always been found to have been honest and legal by thorough studies by the right-wing Bengazi committee (which found nothing) and the FBI (which found nothing to charge her with.) Yet the framing worked.

There is a common metaphor that Immorality Is Illegality, and that acting against Strict Father Morality (the only kind off morality recognized) is being immoral. Since virtually everything Hillary Clinton has ever done has violated Strict Father Morality, that makes her immoral to strict conservatives. The metaphor makes her actions immoral, which makes her a crook. The chant “Lock her up!” activates this whole line of reasoning.

*3. Well-known examples:* When a well-publicized disaster happens, the coverage is repeated over and over, and watched on TV and read about many times. Neurally, the repetition activates the frame-circuitry for it over and over, strengthening the synapses with each repetition. Neural circuits with strong synapses can be activated more easily than those with weak synapses, and so the probability that they will be activated is higher. And so the frame is more likely to be activated.

Repeated examples of shootings by Muslims, African-Americans, and Latinos make it seem probable that it could happen to you. It thus raises fears that it could happen to you and your community — despite the miniscule actual probability. Trump uses this technique to create fear. Fear tends to activate desire for a strong strict father to protect you — namely, Trump.

*4. Grammar:* Radical Islamic terrorists: “Radical” puts Muslims on a linear scale and “terrorists” imposes a frame on the scale, suggesting that terrorism is built into the religion itself. The grammar suggests that there is something about Islam that has terrorism inherent in it. Imagine calling the Charleston gunman a “radical Republican terrorist.”

Trump is aware of this to at least some extent. As he said to Tony Schwartz, the ghost-writer who wrote The Art of the Deal for him, “I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and it’s a very effective form of promotion.”

*5.* Conventional metaphorical thought is inherent in our largely unconscious thought. Such normal modes of metaphorical thinking are not noticed as such. Consider Brexit, which used the metaphor of “entering” and “leaving” the EU.

There is a universal metaphor that states are bounded regions in space: you can enter a state, be deep in some state, and come out of that state. If you enter a café and then leave the café, you will be in the same location as before you entered.

But that need not be true of states of being. But that was the metaphor used with Brexit; Britons believed that after leaving the EU, things would be as before when the entered the EU. They were wrong. Things changed radically while they were in the EU.

That same metaphor is being used by Trump: Make America Great Again. Make America Safe Again. And so on. As if there was some past ideal state that we can go back to just by electing Trump. 

*6.* There is also a metaphor that A Country Is a Person and a metonymy of the President Standing For the Country. Thus, Obama, via both metaphor and metonymy, can stand conceptually for America. Therefore, by saying that Obama is weak and not respected, it is communicated that America, with Obama as president, is weak and disrespected. The inference is that it is because of Obama.

The corresponding inference is that, with a strong president like Trump, the country should be strong, and via strict father reasoning, respected.

*7.* The country as person metaphor and the metaphor that war or conflict between countries is a fistfight between people, leads to the inference that just having a strong president will guarantee that America will win conflicts and wars. Trump will just throw knockout punches. In his acceptance speech at the convention, Trump repeatedly said that he would accomplish things that, in reality, can only be done by the people acting with their government. After one such statement, there was a chant from the floor, “He will do it.”

*8.* The metaphor that The nation Is a Family was used throughout the GOP convention. We heard that strong military sons are produced by strong military fathers and that “defense of country is a family affair.” From Trump’s love of family and commitment to their success, we are to conclude that, as president he will love America’s citizens and be committed to the success of all.

*9.* There is a common metaphor that identifying with your family’s national heritage makes you a member of that nationality. Suppose your grandparents came from Italy and you identify with your Italian ancestors, you may proudly state that you are Italian. The metaphor is natural. Literally, you have been American for two generations. Trump made use of this commonplace metaphor in attacking US District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is American, born and raised in the United States. Trump said he was a Mexican, and therefore would hate him and tend to rule against him in a case brought against Trump University for fraud.

*10.* Then there is the metaphor system used in the phrase “to call someone out.” First the word “out.” There is a general metaphor that Knowing Is Seeing as in “I see what you mean.” Things that are hidden inside something cannot be seen and hence not known, while things are not hidden but out in public can be seen and hence known. To “out” someone is to make their private knowledge public. To “call someone out” is to publicly name someone’s hidden misdeeds, thus allowing for public knowledge and appropriate consequences.

This is the basis for the Trumpian metaphor that Naming is Identifying. Thus naming your enemies will allow you to identify correctly who they are, get to them, and so allow you to defeat them. Hence, just saying “radical Islamic terrorists” allows you to pick them out, get at them, and annihilate them. And conversely, if you don’t say it, you won’t be able to pick them out and annihilate them. Thus a failure to use those words means that you are protecting those enemies — in this case Muslims, that is, potential terrorists because of their religion.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Our neural minds think in certain patterns. Trump knows how to exploit them. Whatever other limitations on his knowledge, he knows a lot about using your brain against you to acquire and maintain power and money.

24. The Media

It is vitally important for the public to be aware of how their brains can be used against them. Can the media do such a job? There are many forces militating against it.

First, there is obvious pressure on those reporting on politics in the media to assume that thought is conscious and not to talk about matters outside of public political discourse, that is, don’t talk about things your audience can’t understand.

Second, many in the media accept Enlightenment Reason. It is common for progressive pundits to quote conservative claims in conservative language and then argue against it, assuming that negating a frame will wipe it out, when instead negating a frame activates and strengthens the frame. They are ignoring the warnings of Don’t Think of an Elephant!

Third, there is the metaphor that Objectivity is Balance, that interviews are about opinions and that opinions should be balanced.

Fourth, there are political and economic levers of power that are being used on the media. Trump is choosing the new members of the Federal Communications Commission, which has the power to take away broadcast licenses. The Congress has the power of the purse over National Public Broadcasting and one can already see where NPR correspondents are hesitant to challenge lies. Similarly corporate advertisers have that power over radio and tv stations, as do their corporate owners.

Fifth, there are ratings, which mean advertising money. The head of CBS, Leslie Moonves, for example, said that CBS benefitted by giving Trump free airtime during the campaign. “It may not be good for America, but it’s good for CBS,” he said.

Sixth, it is virtually impossible during an interview to do instant fact-checking and constantly interrupting the interviewee to confront his lies, or at least report them. It would of course lead the interviewee to refuse future interviews with that reporter or that station — or keep him or her out of the White House Press Corps.

The result is media intimidation and steps toward the loss of the free press. The question is whether people in the media can join together in courage when their careers, and hence their livelihood, are threatened.

One possibility is for journalists to use more accurate language. Take government regulations. Their job is to protect the public from harm and fraud composed by unscrupulous corporations. The Trump administration wants to get rid of “regulations.” They are actually getting rid of protection. Can journalists actually say they are getting rid of protections, saying the word “protection,” and reporting on the harm that would be done by not protecting the public.

Can the media report on corporate poisoning of the public — through introducing lead and other cancer-causing agents into the water through fracking and various manufacturing processes, through making food or toiletries that contain poisonous and cancer-causing ingredients, and on and on. The regulations are there for a purpose — protection. Can the media use the words POISON and CANCER? The public needs to know.

Seventh, there are science-of-mind constraints. Reporters and commentators are expected to stick to what is conscious and with literal meaning. But most real political discourse makes use of unconscious thought, which shapes conscious thought via unconscious framing and commonplace conceptual metaphors, as we have seen. Can the media figure out a way to say what in this article?

More than ever we need courage and imagination in the media. It is crucial, for the history of the country and the world, as well as the planet.

25. What The Majority Can Do

A strong American Majority movement is necessary, and its backbone has to be a citizens’ communication system — or systems — run through the internet, framing American values accurately and systemically day after day, telling truths framed by American majority moral values — and appealing honestly and forthrightly to those in-group nurturant values in small towns across America. The idea that must be brought across is empathy for those in your in-group, your town. This is basic progressive thought: citizens care about citizens and provide public resources for all, maximizing freedom. It fits in-group nurturance. And it undermines — rather than negates — strict father morality.

*What a Strict Father Cannot Be*

There are certain things that strict fathers cannot be: A Loser, Corrupt, and especially not a Betrayer of Trust.

Trump lost the popular vote. To the American majority, he is a *Loser, a minority president*. It needs to be said and repeated.

Above all, Trump is a *Betrayer of Trust. *He is acting like a dictator, and is even supporting Putin’s anti-American policies.

He is betraying trust in a direct way, by refusing to put his business interests in a blind trust. By doing so, and by insisting on his children both running the business and getting classified information, he is using the presidency to make himself incredibly wealthy — just as Putin has. This is *Corruption* of the highest and most blatant level. Can the media say the words: *Corruption, Betrayal of Trust*? He ran on a promise to end corruption, to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Instead, he has brought a new and much bigger swamp with him — lobbyists put in charge of one government agency after another, using public funds and the power of the government to serve corporate greed. And the biggest crock in the swamp is Trump himself!

The Trump administration will wreak havoc on the very people who voted for him in those small towns — disaster after disaster. It will be a huge betrayal. The $500 billion in infrastructure — roads and bridges, airports, sewers, eliminating lead water pipes — will probably not make it to those thousands of small rural towns with in-group nurturance for the townspeople. How many factories with good-paying jobs can be brought to such towns? Not thousands. Many of those who voted for Trump will inevitably be among the 20 million who will lose their health care. And they will become even further victims of corporate greed — more profits going to the top one percent and more national corporations, say, fast food and big-box stores paying low wages and offering demeaning jobs will continue to wipe out local businesses. Will this be reported? Will it even be said? And if so, how will it be said in a way that doesn’t wind up promoting Trump?

The American majority must create an online citizen communication network — or multiple networks — to spread its positive American values and truths as antidotes to those small towns with in-group nurturance as the Trump swamp swamps them!

The message is not merely negative, that they are being betrayed. That’s the Don’t Think of an Elephant! trap. Rather it is that the town’s in-group nurturance is nurturance. It works because care is morally right.

Right now the majority is fighting back, pointing out what is wrong with Trump day after day. In many cases, they are missing the message of Don’t Think of an Elephant! By fighting against Trump, many protesters are just showcasing Trump, keeping him in the limelight, rather than highlighting the majority’s positive moral view and viewing the problem with Trump from within the majority’s positive worldview frame. To effectively fight for what is right, you have to first say what is right and why.

George Lakoff is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and Director of the Center for the Neural Mind & Society (website: cnms.berkeley.edu). His many books and articles can be found at his website: www.georgelakoff.com. He is one of the most cited of American scholars, with more than 130,000 citations in scholarly journals — the second most at UC Berkeley. The citations of his work can be found at the Google Scholar Citation Index.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

Submitted by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

· European criticism of Trump goes far beyond a simple displeasure with the man who will be the next president. The* condemnation reveals a deep-seated contempt for the United States,* and for American voters who democratically elected a candidate committed to restoring American economic and military strength.
· *The primary cause of the global disorder is the lack of American leadership at home and abroad. *A series of feckless decisions by Obama to reduce American military influence abroad have created geopolitical power vacuums that are being filled by countries and ideologies that are innately hostile to Western interests and values.
· For the past seven decades, the U.S. has spent hundreds of millions of dollars annually to guarantee German security, although Germany steadfastly refuses to honor a NATO pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defense spending.* Germans are now offended that Trump is asking them to pay their fair share for their own defense.*
· Although President Obama's foreign policy missteps have made Europe much less safe than it was eight years ago, European elites have overlooked Obama's mistakes because he is a "globalist" who seems to favor recreating the U.S. in the European image. Trump, by contrast, is a nationalist who wants to rebuild the U.S. in the American, not the European, image.
· *European anti-Americanism is certain to escalate in the years ahead, not because of Trump or his policies, but because "globalists" appear desperate to save the failing European Union, an untransparent, unaccountable, anti-democratic, sovereignty-grabbing alternative to the nation state.*

European anti-Americanism — which was on the wane during the presidency of Barack Obama, who steered the United States on a course of globalism rather than nationalism — is back with a vengeance.

*Europe's media establishment has greeted Donald Trump's election victory with a vitriol not seen since the George W. Bush presidency, when anti-Americanism in Europe was at fever pitch.*

Since the American election on November 9, European television, radio and print media have produced an avalanche of negative stories, editorials and commentary that seethe with rage over the outcome of the vote.

European criticism of Trump goes far beyond a simple displeasure with the man who will be the next president. The condemnation reveals a deep-seated contempt for the United States, and for American voters who democratically elected a candidate committed to restoring American economic and military strength.

If the past is any indication of the future, European anti-Americanism will be a pervasive feature of transatlantic relations during the Trump presidency.

Although European opinion-shapers have focused much of their indignation on the threat Trump allegedly poses to global order, the president-elect will inherit a world that is significantly more chaotic and insecure than it was when Obama became president in January 2009.

*The primary cause of the global disorder is the lack of American leadership — leading from behind — at home and abroad.*

A series of feckless decisions by Obama to reduce American military influence abroad have created geopolitical power vacuums that are being filled by countries and ideologies that are innately hostile to Western interests and values. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and radical Islam — among many others — have all been emboldened to challenge the United States and its allies with impunity.

*European elites have been mostly silent about Obama's foreign policy failures, but are now lashing out at Trump for pledging to restore order by "making America great again."*

As during the Bush administration, anti-Americanism in Europe is once again being driven by Germany, a country that was effectively rebuilt by the United States after the Second World War. The Marshall Plan granted West Germany some $1.5 billion ($15 billion in 2016 dollars) in reconstruction aid between 1948 and 1951.

For the past seven decades, the United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars annually to guarantee German security, although Germany steadfastly refuses to honor a NATO pledge to spend a minimum of 2% of GDP on defense spending. Germany spent only 1.16% of GDP on its own defense in 2015 and 1.15% in 2016. German officials are now offended that Trump is asking them to pay their fair share for their own defense.

*Following is a small sampling of recent European commentary on Donald Trump and the United States:*

In Germany, the Hamburg-based newsmagazine Der Spiegel, one of the largest-circulation publications in Europe, published a cover with an image of a giant meteor in the shape of Trump's head hurtling towards the earth. The headline reads: "The End of the World (As We Know It). The issue includes more than 50 pages of related content, including an article by Dirk Kurbjuweit entitled, "One-Hundred Years of Fear: America Has Abdicated Its Leadership of the West." He wrote:



"For 100 years, the United States was the leader of the free world. With the election of Donald Trump, America has now abdicated that role. It is time for Europe, and Angela Merkel, to step into the void....

 

"Trump, who wants nothing to do with globalization; Trump, who preaches American nationalism, isolation, partial withdrawal from world trade and zero responsibility for a global problem like climate change....

 

"We now face emptiness — fear of the void. What will happen to the West, to Europe, to Germany without the United States as its leading power?

In Germany, Der Spiegel, one of the largest-circulation publications in Europe, published a cover, after Donald Trump's election victory, with an image of a giant meteor in the shape of Trump's head hurtling towards the earth. The headline reads: "The End of the World (As We Know It)".

In an article, "Trump's Victory Ushers in Dangerous Instability," Spiegel commentator Roland Nelles wrote:



"It really happened. He did it. Donald Trump proved all experts wrong.... A man who... preaches hate and snubs America's most important partners will run the most powerful country on Earth. It is a political catastrophe.

 

"Crude populism has triumphed over reason. Trump's success is a shock for all those who had counted on the political wisdom of American voters....

 

"The world, and America, is now threatened by a dangerous phase of instability: Donald Trump wants to make America 'great' again. If one believes his pronouncements, he will proceed ruthlessly: He wants to throw 11 million migrants out of the country, renegotiate all major trade agreements and make important allies such as Germany pay for US military protection. That will trigger significant conflict, incite new rivalries and spur new crises."



In an opinion article, "An Absurd and Dangerous President," Spiegel commentator Klaus Brinkbäumer wrote:



"The United States has voted for a dangerously inexperienced and racist man — one who was swept into the White House by an army of disenfranchised white working- and middle-class Americans. It is a movement that now threatens democracy around the world....

 

"In other words, 60 million Americans acted stupidly. They cast their votes for xenophobia, racism and nationalism, the end of equal rights and social conscience, for the end of climate treaties and health insurance. Sixty million people followed a demagogue who will do little for them.

 

"Those who have lived in New York or experienced dinner conversations in Georgetown and debates at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, know how brilliantly intelligent and worldly Americans can be.... Once you get outside such circles, such cosmopolitan thinking isn't nearly as widespread."



The Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, in an article, "Trump's Foreign Policy: What This Election Means for the World," stated:



"The man who politicians around the world called 'scary,' 'ignorant' or 'irrational' will move into the White House. The uncertainty around the world is great. If cartoonists are to be believed, Donald Trump's idea of ??the world is very simplistic. Africa is the birthplace of Barack Obama. Russia is a country that was made great again. Great Britain is a no-go area."



The Hamburg-based Die Zeit, in an article, "Trump and How He Sees the World," wrote:



"Wow. The West crumbles before our eyes. What is going on here can be explained by two data points: On November 9, 1989, the wall fell in Berlin.... On November 9, 2016, exactly 27 years later, a man has been elected to the White House whose central election pledge was the construction of a wall.

 

"The ideas of the new president are neither contradictory nor confused. His demands can be easily summarized on the cap of a beer bottle: integrate Putin, keep Mexicans out and treat American allies as the customers of a security service. There is only protection if one pays cash, even in NATO.



In a commentary, "The End of the Enlightenment," Zeit essayist Adrian Daub wrote:



"Donald Trump is a remnant of a dying America.... He has turned the country from a multicultural lighthouse into an isolated island of white people who are afraid of their own shadow.

 

"The idea of American exceptionalism, the lighthouse, was already present at the foundation of the nation.... The idea of ??American radiance is one with the ideas of the Enlightenment that came from Europe to the colonies. Ideas like universal values ??or the human striving for truth.

 

"Trump's election means the end of this project. The United States is no longer a lighthouse, but a flaming fire of tired shadows armed to the teeth. No trace remains of its prototypical character, its imitability. It is defiant, closed to the world. The nationalism of isolationism... the tumultuous tribalism... are shaking the foundations of the Enlightenment.

 

"The US upheld the values ??of the Enlightenment — humanism, an optimistic image of man, human dignity and civil rights — when Europe deviated from them in the thirties. It used humanism as a weapon in the struggle against fascism, its universality as a counterpart to nationalism, and with its re-importation after the Second World War has contributed to the reestablishment of the European project. Today, these values ??are once more in trouble in Europe, but the view across the Atlantic will not be reassuring as of January."



Other German headlines include: "Trump has the Charisma of a Drunken Elephant,""Donald Trump: A Horror Clown as a Security Risk,""Trump: How Could this Happen?,""Plans of the New US President: How Trump Wants to Poison the Air,""Donald Trump: A Blow to Open Society,""America Chooses the Great Divider,""Donald Trump: A King Without a Plan,""Donald is not Ronald,""Donald is not Churchill,""Can Trump also Happen in Germany?,""How to Prevent a German Trump,""Who Can Stop Trump Now?," and "Will Berlin Have to Pay More for Defense?"

In Britain, the Guardian published an editorial, "The Guardian View on Trump's Foreign Policy: A Threat to Peace," which stated:



"The victory of Donald Trump shatters the notion that the US can be counted on by its allies not just for defense guarantees and economic cooperation, but even as a defender of liberal democracy, rather than a threat to it. It calls into question the traditional US role as a protector of a UN-based global architecture of multilateralism....

 

"For Donald Trump, politics — like business — is about deal making. He thinks man-to-man talk with dictators can instantly dissolve problems, and approaches foreign affairs as zero sum game in which making America great can mean demeaning its traditional friends. His election makes the world a more dangerous place and also a more uncertain place, for it is too early to say precisely how those dangers will materialize — or how the next US president will face up to them."



The Guardian, in an essay, "A Win for Trump was a Win for Bigotry," columnist Owen Jones wrote:



"Hang on a minute: who am I as a Briton to interfere in the internal affairs of a foreign country? The problem is the entire world is now subject to the writ of the leader of the last superpower. We are all, to a degree, under his dominion....

 

"Trumpism is, by nature, an authoritarian movement that regards democratic norms as dispensable if they fail to serve political ends. The aspiration — whether realizable or not — is clear: authoritarian societies such as Putin's Russia, Erdo?an's Turkey and Orbán's Hungary that maintain certain democratic trappings as a convenient front.

"If the American people simply accept the legitimacy of this president, and they normalize this would-be tyrant, it will only embolden him.... Civil disobedience should be employed where necessary. Don't just do it for yourself, America. The fate of the rest of the world will be determined by your choices."



Other British headlines include: "Will Donald Trump Destroy America?,""Why President Donald Trump is an Even Bigger Disaster than You Thought,""Donald Trump's Victory is a Disaster for Liberal Values,""Donald Trump's Victory is a Disaster for Modern Masculinity,""Privacy Experts Fear Donald Trump Running Global Surveillance Network,""Terrifying Trump Will Turn into Tamed Trump? It's an Illusion,""The Magnetic Pull of Trump, King Narcissist,""Will Donald Trump Make School Lunches Unhealthy? Doctors Warn the President-elect's Penchant for Burgers and Fried Chicken Could Hit Meal Trays,""In the Age of Trump, Why Bother Teaching Students to Argue Logically?," and "Donald Trump Believed to be Direct Descendant of Rurik the Viking who Established Russian State."

In Spain, where anti-Americanism has held sway for many decades, the newspaper El País published an essay, "Declaration of War against Stupidity," which showcases the contempt many Europeans have for ordinary Americans. The newspaper's long-time essayist, John Carlin, wrote:



"The victory of Trump represents a rebellion against reason and decency. It is the triumph of racism, or misogyny, or stupidity — or all three things at once. It is the expression of the poor judgment and bad taste of 60 million Americans, the vast majority of them men and women of white skin who own homes, cars, firearms and eat more than citizens of any other country on earth.

 

"This is where you see with perfect clarity the stupidity, frivolity and irresponsibility of those who voted for Trump. For all of Clinton's defects, they are trivial compared to those of Trump, whose ignorance, zero principles and zero experience in governance are joined by all forms of personal vices that every person in their right mind at any latitude of the world considers deplorable.

 

"I know the kind who voted for Trump. I met them when I made reports in Texas, Montana, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama and other typically Republican states. They tend to be kind, religious and honest people, decent in their reduced social orbit. But after sitting down to talk with them for a while I always reacted with the same perplexity: how is it possible that we speak the same language? Their words are familiar to me but their brain circuits operate differently. They are people of simple faith, oblivious to the irony; people who choose their truths not based on facts but on their beliefs or prejudices; people who live far from the ocean and the rest of planet Earth, of which they are afraid. I've never experienced a similar sense of disconnection in Europe, Africa or Latin America. Just inside the United States."



In Austria, Kronen Zeitung published a headline entitled, "Nuclear Suitcase: In 72 Days Trump Could Annihilate Civilization." Also in Austria, Kurier published a story entitled, "Trump Victory: Boon for Suicide Hotlines." In France, the newspaper Libération featured a cover with Trump and the words "American Psycho." Another headline read: "United States: The Empire of the Worst." L'Obs asked, "With Trump, the Beginning of De-Globalization?" Le Figaro wrote: "Donald Trump: From Clown to President," and "Europe Paralyzed by the Trump Shock." Le Monde wrote, "Donald Trump's Victory: A Brexit for America." In the Netherlands, Telegraaf declared, "Trump is a Nightmare for Europe."

*How is one to interpret the resurgence of anti-American sentiment in Europe?*

Although President Obama's foreign policy missteps, especially those in the Middle East, have made Europe much less safe than it was eight years ago, European elites have overlooked Obama's mistakes because he is a "globalist" who seems to favor recreating the United States in the European image. Trump, by contrast, is a nationalist who wants to rebuild the United States in the American, not the European, image.

*European anti-Americanism is certain to escalate in the years ahead, not because of Trump or his policies, but because "globalists" appear desperate to save the failing European Union, an untransparent, unaccountable, anti-democratic, sovereignty-grabbing alternative to the nation state.*

Europeans have time and again overestimated their ability to make a fragmented Europe act like a single unified actor. As it turns out, anti-Americanism is a powerful ideology that has wide appeal across Europe — not just among the elites.

In the past, European federalists have tried to make anti-Americanism the basis of a new pan-European identity. This artificial post-modern European "citizenship," which demands allegiance to a faceless bureaucratic superstate based in Brussels, has been presented as a globalist alternative to the nationalism of the United States. In essence, to be "European" means to not be American.

*As the European Union comes apart at the seams, Europe's political establishment can be expected to try to exploit anti-Americanism in a desperate attempt to use it as a glue to hold a fractured Europe together.*

Whether or not that succeed depends, ironically, on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. If he can demonstrate that he is able to govern the United States and produce tangible results, especially by growing the economy and curbing illegal immigration, Trump is certain to energize support for anti-establishment politicians in Europe, many of whom are already polling well in a number of upcoming general elections.

Commenting on Trump's victory, Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, wrote: *"America has just liberated itself from political correctness. The American people expressed their desire to remain a free and democratic people. Now it is time for Europe. We can and will do the same!"* Reported by Zero Hedge 2 days ago.

Recent weather reports show that there will be more snow this winter than the previous. Drivers should be on high alert considering between 2011 and 2015, about 10% of all fatal accidents happened in inclement weather. Drivers need to be ready. Here are some car insurance tips for the winter:

*If the Roads are Closed, Stay Home
*
When roads close due to a storm, you should just stay home. For one, not only is it dangerous but a car insurance company may also have grounds to deny any claim you may file due to an accident. If roads are declared closed by the government, and you drive anyway, your insurance company can say you were committing "contributory negligence".

*
What to do if a Tree or Snow Causes Damage to Your Car?*

If Mother Nature still decided to wreck your car, you shouldn't fret so long as you have comprehensive insurance. Comprehensive coverage is an optional part of car insurance that covers damages to your car caused by forces outside of your control. Whether it's a falling tree, a thick hail storm, or even a baseball through your windshield, your comprehensive coverage will take care of it. On the other hand, if you do not have comprehensive on your policy, you will not be covered in these types of cases. Comprehensive coverage is relatively inexpensive, going for less than $100 per year for a driver with a good record. We recommend you consider adding it to your policy.

*What to do if You Skid into a Parked Car or Building*

If you are caught in a storm, and skid into a parked car or a building, causing damage, your property damage liability insurance will take care of it. Property Damage liability is mandatory in every state, so as long as you have car insurance, you won't have to worry about not having it. Whoever's property you cause damage to will have to file a claim against your property damage to get compensated. You won't have to pay anything out of pocket so long as the damage costs are under the limits of your PD. Just remember if you crash into a parked car, and the owner is not around, leave a note with your information. Failing to do so is a felony, and will disqualify your from your insurance as well.

*What to do if Someone Hits Your Car*

In the opposite situation, if someone hits your parked car while you are away, you may have two options. The first is one we discuss above, where you can now file a claim against the other driver's Property Damage Liability insurance. You may also file a claim through your collision insurance if you have it on your policy. Collision insurance covers all damage to your vehicle, regardless of who caused it. While collision coverage is the easier of the two options, filing a claim may cause your rates to go up. You should speak to your agent first, before you file a claim.

*What to do if Your Car Skids and You are Injured*

If you are injured in an accident caused by snow or ice, your personal injury protection or health insurance will cover you. Personal Injury Protection, or PIP, is a mandatory coverage in 13 states, and optional elsewhere. It pays for the cost of your injuries that are sustained in a car accident. Without PIP, your injuries will not be covered. Unless there is another driver whom you can file a claim against, you will not able to seek compensation through you injuries -- other than relying on your health insurance.

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Today is the 53rd anniversary of JFK’s assassination, and yet Rafael Cruz still walks free. Reince Priebus reportedly lied to Donald Trump about his meeting with the New York Times, probably because his strategy of spelling out words he didn’t want the president-elect to hear also backfired. And President Obama awarded a fresh batch of Presidential Medals of Freedom today. We’d liked to offer our early congratulations to Rob Schneider, Dog the Bounty Hunter and the “Double Rainbow” guy on their 2017 Presidential Medals of Freedom. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016:

*We’ll be out for the rest of the week. Enjoy eating your feelings and Happy Thanksgiving! Oh, and a turkey that President Obama pardoned **is dead**.*

*THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY MAKES A BIGLY RETURN* - This is just like when Richard Nixon spent all that time in the White House basement drinking Mountain Dew and day-trading. Paul Blumenthal: “President-elect Donald Trump *told The New York Times Tuesday that laws around conflicts of interest don’t apply to him*, and he can simply keep running his businesses from the White House. ‘In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly,’ Trump said, according to tweets from New York Times reporters interviewing the president-elect Tuesday. ‘There’s never been a case like this.’ *He is technically correct on both counts*. Federal conflict of interest laws do not apply to the president of the United States, and the obvious conflicts of interest created from his ownership of a global real estate empire are unprecedented in the nation’s history. Just because the federal laws mandating other federal officials to place their assets into a true blind trust run by an independent trustee do not apply to the president, does not mean that Trump’s conflicts of interest are not real.” [HuffPost]

*TRUMP FOUNDATION ADMITS TO SELF-DEALING* - David Fahrenthold: “President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the IRS that it violated a legal prohibition against ‘self-dealing,’ which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families. The admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s IRS tax filings for 2015, which were recently posted online at the nonprofit-tracking site GuideStar. A GuideStar spokesman said the forms were uploaded by the Trump Foundation’s law firm, Morgan, Lewis and Bockius....* In one section of **the form**, the IRS asked if the Trump Foundation had transferred ‘income or assets to a disqualified person.’ A **disqualified person**, in this context, might be Trump — the foundation’s president — or a member of his family or a Trump-owned business. The foundation checked ‘yes.’ *Another line on the form asked if the Trump Foundation had engaged in any acts of self-dealing in prior years. The Trump Foundation checked ‘yes’ again.” [WashPost]

*PRESIDENT’S COMMUTATIONS PASS 1,000* - Many of these have been for drug-related offenses, which were basically the unsecured email servers of the 1980s. Ryan J. Reilly: “President Barack Obama granted clemency to 79 federal inmates on Tuesday, meaning *he has given commutations to more than 1,000 individuals over the course of his presidency. Neil Eggleston, White House counsel, said Obama will continue to grant clemency throughout the remainder of his time in office*. ‘I think you can anticipate that we will keep going until the end,’ he said. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said it was important to remember that there are stories behind each of those 1,023 names.... While Obama’s numbers are record-setting, his clemency initiative has affected just a small portion of the overall federal prison population. There are now more than 191,000 federal inmates, roughly the same number there were a decade ago in 2006.” [HuffPost]

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*OLD AND BUSTED: “LOCK HER UP!” NEW HOTNESS: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - *Before assuming this matter is now settled, remember three things: 1) Trump takes back his word all the time; 2) Presidents don’t choose who gets prosecuted; and 3) Breitbart is furious about this. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear: “President-elect Donald J. Trump repeatedly called Hillary Clinton ‘Crooked Hillary,’ and many of his fans chanted over and over again at his campaign rallies: ‘Lock her up!’ But on Tuesday, *Mr. Trump essentially said never mind, signaling that he has no intention of directing investigations into his former rival’s use of a private email server or the financial operations at the Clinton family’s global foundation. ‘I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,’’ Mr. Trump said* during a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times. ‘She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.’” [NYT]

*DONALD TRUMP AND **NEW YORK TIMES** HAVE A WEIRD, “FINAL SCENE OF ‘Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN’” KIND OF MOMENT - *The important thing is this all ended with Thomas Friedman asking the world’s most powerful person-in waiting a terrible question. Sydney Ember: “*The strained relationship between Donald J. Trump and The New York Times took an odd path on Tuesday when a planned meeting between the president-elect and the newspaper was abruptly canceled by Mr. Trump and then quickly rescheduled*. After a morning of back-and-forth statements and Twitter posts, Mr. Trump arrived at midday for a meeting with Times representatives at the paper’s Midtown headquarters. Seated next to the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., in the paper’s Churchill Room, he said he had great respect for the paper but thought its treatment of him had been ‘very rough.’” [NYT]

*PRIEBUS STRAIGHT UP LYING TO TRUMP* - Total cuck move, bro. Ryan Grim: “Reince Priebus had a problem. His boss, President-elect Donald Trump, was scheduled to have an on-the-record meeting with reporters and editors from The New York Times. Priebus thought ― certainly not for the last time ― that Trump wasn’t prepared for the meeting. But it’s not easy to tell Donald Trump he’s not up to a task. *So, according to three sources who spoke to the same New York Times, Priebus made up a little lie. The Times, he told Trump, had tried to unilaterally change the terms of the meeting*. Priebus reportedly offered up this fib ‘believing it would result in a cancellation, these people said.’ It did. Trump promptly took to Twitter and shut the whole thing down.’” [HuffPost]

*HILL DEMOCRATS TRYING TO KEEP SPOTLIGHT ON TRUMP’S BUSINESS INTERESTS* - Ben Cardin’s long, winding path to the White House certainly began here, yes? Nahal Toosi: “Sen. Ben Cardin... plans to introduce a resolution calling on President-elect Donald Trump to take the necessary financial steps to ensure that he is not violating any constitutional limits on a president’s conflicts of interest...*Cardin plans to introduce the resolution next week, although with a Republican-controlled Congress, it’s hard to say how far it will go*. According to the announcement, the resolution will ‘note that in the absence of such actions by the President-elect before he assumes office or specific authorization by Congress, Congress will regard dealings by Trump-owned companies with any entity owned by a foreign government as potential violations of the Constitution.’ … On the House side, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Mo)... along with other top Democrats on the committee, asked inspectors general for a handful of federal departments and agencies to closely monitor any problems that might arise from the president-elect’s interests.” [Politico]

*TRUMP RE: WHITE SUPREMACISTS: **WHO**, **ME?** - *Igor Bobic: “President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday renounced the white nationalist movement, which has grown in prominence following his campaign and election. Speaking with New York Times reporters and editorial staff at their office in Manhattan, Trump said he did not feel responsible for energizing white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers.... *This is the furthest Trump has ever gone in acknowledging and disavowing the white nationalist movement, also known as the ‘alt-right*.’ During the campaign, the real estate mogul was slow to reject former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who celebrated Trump’s candidacy as a boon for white supremacists around the country. Despite his public comments, however, Trump’s campaign often openly courted white supremacist groups.” [HuffPost]

*REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE TARNISHES ELECTORAL PROCESS FOR OWN GAIN* - Go figure. Julia Craven: “On Tuesday, *North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory officially filed for a statewide recount, after hinting that he would do so earlier this month. ‘With many outstanding votes yet to be counted for the first time, legal challenges, ballot protests and voter fraud allegations, we must keep open the ability to allow the established recount process to ensure very legal vote is counted properly,’* said Russell Peck, McCrory’s campaign manager, in a statement. On Nov. 9, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) declared victory over McCrory, the embattled Republican incumbent who signed into law some of the most retrograde legislation in the country since his term began in 2013.... The North Carolina Republican Party has filed a formal complaint challenging the vote count in Durham County and asking that ballots be recounted by hand. The state GOP argues that the results were put in the state’s election system by officials operating with ‘bleary eyes and tired hands.’” [HuffPost]

*QOTD*: “Killer Mike has never killed anybody. It’s just, he’s a killer rapper.” - Bernie Sanders to GQ.

*GOP NO LONGER THAT INTO THEIR OBAMACARE LAWSUIT - *Ever get the feeling these legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act were never about concern for the rule of law? Jeffrey Young: “House Republicans want a federal appeals court to let them delay the next phase of their lawsuit against President Barack Obama that would have devastating consequences for the Affordable Care Act…. If the House Republicans eventually prevailed in the case, it would cut off cost-sharing reduction payments made to health insurance companies that are required to reduce out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and co-payments for low-income people. As The Huffington Post reported Saturday, *eliminating these subsidy payments would give Trump and congressional Republicans their first major win in their war against Obamacare. But it also would severely disrupt the health insurance market*.” [HuffPost]

*DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT, BERNIE BROS - *Hey, maybe this will get them to to fix that Nevada convention, too! Kyle Cheney: “*At least a half-dozen Democratic electors have signed onto an attempt to block Donald Trump from winning an Electoral College majority, an effort designed not only to deny Trump the presidency but also to undermine the legitimacy of the institution*. The presidential electors, mostly former Bernie Sanders supporters who hail from Washington state and Colorado, are now lobbying their Republican counterparts in other states to reject their oaths — and in some cases, state law — to vote against Trump when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19.... The Democratic electors are convinced that even in defeat, their efforts would erode confidence in the Electoral College and fuel efforts to eliminate t.” [Politico]

*BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR *- Here’s a big dog with . . . wait for it . . . a small dog.

*DONALD TRUMP HAS A BLACK FRIEND* - And he wants him to maybe lead that “urban” agency...he loves the African-Americans! “I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. I’ve gotten to know him well―he’s a greatly talented person who loves people!’ the president-elect tweeted today. Here’s the thing, as pointed out by Mediaite’s Justin Baragona: “[I]t was just a week ago when Ben Carson stated that he wasn’t interested in leading a federal agency because he didn’t think he had the qualifications. According to The Hill, Carson ally Armstrong Williams said the retired neurosurgeon was only interested in being an unofficial adviser due to the fact that he lacked the proper experience.” [Mediaite]

*COMFORT FOOD*

- Insane footage from New Zealand of the tectonic shift brought about by a recent earthquake.

- A record-breaking basketball shot.

- How to cook Thanksgiving dinner with drones.

*TWITTERAMA*

@sissenberg: 2017 MEDAL OF FREEDOM RECIPIENTS
Mario Buatta
Steven Seagal
Peter Max
Engelbert Humperdinck
Jimmy the Greek*
* posthumously awarded

@NickBaumann: Trump: “I’m going to blow up the world.”

NYT Headline: In Interview With Times, Trump Details Foreign Policy Plans

@dcbigjohn: David Vitter wearing mom jeans on an airplane dot tumblr dot com

Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com) or Arthur Delaney (arthur@huffingtonpost.com).

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

Health-insurance premiums for Alaskans have been soaring almost 40% a year. That prompted the state government to make a novel move: to pay health costs for about 500 of the sickest residents to hold down premiums for everyone else. Reported by Wall Street Journal 2 days ago.

DentalPlans, a leading resource for finding affordable dental healthcare, receives the highest ranking available from TopConsumerReviews.com.

Overland Park, KS (PRWEB) November 23, 2016

TopConsumerReviews.com recently gave a best-in-class 5 star rating to DentalPlans, a leader among online providers of dental care plans.

More than half of people in America are not covered by a dental insurance plan. With rising health insurance premiums, many individuals find that their employers are no longer providing the same level of coverage offered previously. Additionally, in families where children qualify for state-subsidized health insurance, parents may not be eligible for similar coverage and find themselves looking for options for care. Dental insurance plans are a smart way to reduce or even eliminate the expensive costs of fillings, X-rays, and more serious situations like broken or knocked-out teeth. In today’s marketplace, finding the right dental insurance coverage is as simple as going online and using one of the websites that specialize in connecting individuals and families with plans that meet their needs.

“Finding the right Dental Insurance can be daunting, but :DentalPlans makes it easy for individuals and families to afford the dental procedures they need,” explained Brian Dolezal of TopConsumerReviews.com, LLC. “Since 1999, DentalPlans has been a leading source of discount dental plans and currently carries more than 30 plans to choose from. Just enter your zip code to get a list of all of the plans available in your area. Then use their simple tools to compare those plans by features, savings, and benefits. Or, if you already have a dentist you would like to keep, simply search by name to find the plans that include him or her. With an easy-to-use website and an excellent reputation as demonstrated by testimonials from some of their many happy customers, we are pleased to give DentalPlans our top rating among providers of Dental Care in 2016.”

To find out more about DentalPlans and other sources of affordable dental care, including reviews and comparison rankings, please visit the Dental Insurance category of TopConsumerReviews.com at http://www.topconsumerreviews.com/dental-insurance/.

About DentalPlans
DentalPlans, founded in 1999, is a leading dental and health savings marketplace in the U.S., helping more than a million people to affordably access quality healthcare services. They provide comprehensive resource centers aimed at helping people to maintain/regain optimal health, and successfully navigate the maze of healthcare payment options (including Obamacare and Medicaid.) They offer user-friendly access to a wide selection of traditional dental insurance and 30+dental savings plans, along with innovative healthcare offerings including telemedicine, medical advocacy, and online counseling services.

About TopConsumerReviews.com
TopConsumerReviews.com, LLC is a leading provider of independent reviews and rankings of hundreds of consumer products and services. From Dental Insurance to Elliptical Machines and Medical Alert Systems, TopConsumerReviews.com delivers in-depth product evaluations in order to make purchasing decisions easier. Reported by PRWeb 1 day ago.

This deal will allow UK and Irish Underwriters to gain greater access and benefit from LOGiQ³’s highly acclaimed digital Underwriting Training Programme.

Cardiff, UK (PRWEB) November 23, 2016

LOGiQ³, a global consulting and outsourcing provider to the life insurance and reinsurance market, have announced a new distribution partnership with Andrew Wibberley – Alea Risk, a specialist change and customer proposition consultancy provider, to bring its industry recognised Underwriting Training Programme to the UK and Ireland market.

LOGiQ³’s decision to leverage the extensive underwriting background and network of Alea Risk, will not only increase the Programme’s reach but it is also a part of their long term UK and Irish expansion plan.

Andrew Wibberley, Director of Alea Risk brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, including five years at Swiss Re as Head of Underwriting for the UK & Ireland. Previously, he has held senior industry roles at Ageas, XL Catlin and Munich Re. Andrew will be working closely with the newly established LOGiQ³ team based in the UK headed up by LOGiQ³ Group, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Simon Bell and Head of EMEA Strategy & Business Development, Andy Hazell.

“Training is absolutely fundamental to providing Underwriters with the necessary skills to assess the complex risks of Life & Health insurance. By innovatively using technology to develop both new and existing underwriters, insurers can improve both their risk management and their customer offering.” said Andrew Wibberley, Director of Alea Risk.

“We are delighted to partner with the proven capabilities of industry leader, LOGiQ³. Its digital Underwriting Training Programme is highly regarded and already used by a number of major UK industry providers."

Simon Bell, LOGiQ³ Co-CEO and Co-Founder comments:

“Attracting someone of Andrew’s calibre and experience to work with our business is a great endorsement of our strategy and ambition. We are focussed on growing quickly into a leading training and service provider to the UK Life industry, and Andrew’s experience will help us achieve that. He is already familiar with our service offering and people through his previous role at Swiss Re. I have no doubt that Alea will be a great business partner.”

###

For business inquiries, please contact:

Andy Hazell, LOGiQ³
Head of Strategy & Business Development - EMEA
07870 636117
andy.hazell(at)logiq3.com    

Andrew Wibberley, Alea Risk
Director
07814 626160
andrew(at)alearisk.com

For media inquiries, please contact:
Natalie Ho, LOGiQ³
Vice President, Marketing & Sales
natalie.ho(at)logiq3.com

About Alea Risk

Alea Risk provides specialist change and customer proposition consultancy services to Insurers, distributors, charities and individuals in the life industry. With expertise and clients across these areas Alea Risk exists to make insurance easy to buy for more in the future.

To learn more about Alea Risk, visit http://www.alearisk.com

About LOGiQ³

LOGiQ³ is part of the LOGiQ³ Group that provides specialist consultancy, outsourcing, systems and compliance solutions to the global life (re)insurance market. Headquartered in Canada, our companies operate independently and serve clients in North America, EMEA, and Asia. The LOGiQ³ Group serves 300 clients worldwide, administering 5m reinsured cessions and over $250b USD of reinsured risk.

To learn more about the LOGiQ³ Group, visit http://www.logiq3group.com Reported by PRWeb 1 day ago.