Part two of the Frederick Hoffman story. The industry playbook against universal coverage was written in 1917, and it’s still in use... Last Sunday you met Frederick Hoffman, the Prudential statistician who spent his life “proving” that helping Black Americans by giving them access to free healthcare would only hasten their extinction. This week’s chapter is about what he and his colleagues did with that belief once real money was on the line. When 200,000 people showed up in Los Angeles to hear President Teddy Roosevelt speak, he pitched a platform that included “social insurance” for all Americans that included comprehensive health coverage. By 1915 the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) was demanding that every state enact comprehensive, universal, government-funded health insurance. By 1916 eight states, New York and California among them, had taken up its model bill, which used government money to cover all medical costs and up to 26 weeks of paid sick leave. The American Medical Association had even endorsed it.

What if we could break the grip of oil and gas companies, slash electricity bills, and unleash an American energy revolution that starts on our own rooftops? Over the next three weeks, Colorado voters will get to vote on an amendment to their constitution giving one single industry the ability to largely prevent any regulation of itself or its pollution. Amendment 82 says that the state would establish a “right” for the natural gas industry to sell its products. It’ll be the only industry in any state to have a state constitutional right assigned to it. Things like pollution controls to protect air and water that might reduce consumption would violate that right. So would local communities trying to limit or ban gas wells or pipelines. Even during a dry fire time, an effort to ban gas-fueled camp stoves and outdoor grills or lights would be a violation. The amendment is being pushed by a dark money group called Advance Colorado; the original donors behind it are hidden, but it’s not hard to guess. And if it passes in Colorado, expect similar amendments and laws to pop up in every state in the union. This is, frankly, nuts. Instead of increasing the power of the fossil fuel industry and encouraging more consumption of their planet-destroying products, we should be helping Americans tap into nuclear fusion power that’s free, compliments of that giant reactor 93 million miles away that we call our Sun.

You don't have to imprison a nation to control it. Destroy a handful of critics, make sure everyone sees it, and watch the rest fall silent… When we think of strongman dictatorships we often imagine tanks in the streets, but those usually come in the later stages of repression (think Tienanmen Square) and often are never even needed (think today’s Russia). Instead, as every dictator on Earth can tell you, you don’t have to silence the entire country; all you have to do is shut up a few strategically-selected people visibly and publicly enough and the rest of the country will get the message and back away. That’s the message of this week’s raid on Ilhan Omar’s home, and so many other atrocities committed by Trump’s eager fascist lickspittles over the past 21 months. He and his advisors are simply repeating a long and well-trod history.

Trump's latest Russia decision threatens to enrich a hostile dictator, undermine American sanctions, and leave Ukraine bleeding. Congress must confront the question Republicans keep avoiding... Is Putin running America through Trump, is Trump just a “useful idiot” for the Russians, or is he the worst traitor America’s seen since the days of Benedict Arnold? Yesterday morning, Trump took to his Nazi-infested social media site to announce to the world (and a bit earlier to people who give him $100,000 a month for market-moving information) that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” telling the world “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!”