Andrew Gillum, The Swiveling Menorah, Medicare Choices, Seven Questions for Republicans, Your Garbage Disposal and a Book Review (The Death of Democracy in Germany)

Andrew’s Turn

In our last posting we devoted a lot of space to the abysmal record of Ron DeSantis who with the endorsement of President Trump is running for governor of Florida.  This week it’s Andrew Gillum’s turn.  Here are ten great reasons, from the pen of Mike Gentry, for voting for Gillum to be the next governor of the Sunshine State.

Ten Reasons to Vote For Andrew Gillum For Governor

Criminal Justice Reform: Andrew believes that after someone pays the penalty for their mistake, they should be given a second chance. He supports the legalization of marijuana in order to generate new revenue to pay for teacher and instructional staff pay increases and to reduce the mass incarceration of people with low-level drug offenses.

Economy and Jobs: Nearly half of Florida’s households struggle to make ends meet, and as the son of a bus driver and construction worker, Andrew knows firsthand what it’s like to have your parents choose between which bills to pay before a service gets cut off.  As Governor, he will address the devastating inequality that has hurt our working families, who are forced to live paycheck to paycheck and feel that the opportunity to get ahead isn’t available to them anymore.

Education: Andrew believes a quality, public education is still the best path to equal opportunity, but that Florida’s education reform has been a failure. Our education system and its over-reliance on high-stakes testing has failed our children, our parents, our teachers and our state. He has proposed a $1 billion investment in our public schools, students, and teachers to boost early childhood education, raise teachers’ starting salaries to $50,000, restore public school construction funds, and increase SHOP 2.0 vocational training.

The Environment: Andrew believes that climate change is a real and urgent threat. Politicians like Donald Trump, who call it a “hoax,” and Governor Rick Scott, who banned the words “climate change” and “global warming,” are putting us and future generations of Floridians at risk. These politicians have failed to take action against climate change, with Florida having the most property at risk in the nation.

Gun Safety: Andrew is the only candidate who has fought the powerful gun lobby in court and won. He has beaten the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Association, to protect a law that bans firing a weapon in a city park.  In the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy, Andrew led the charge for more common-sense gun safety policies including a ban on assault weapons, large capacity magazines, and bump stocks; strengthening and requiring universal background checks for all gun sales; and banning the purchase and possession of armor piercing bullets.

Health Care: Andrew believes that healthcare should be a fundamental right, not a privilege. Instead, extreme politicians refuse to acknowledge that Floridians struggle every day to keep themselves and their families from going bankrupt due to the lack or cost of healthcare. Andrew believes that Senator Sanders’ Medicare for All plan will help lower costs and expand coverage to more Floridians. Gillum has promised to fight the new health care premium increases that are a result of President Trump, Rick Scott and Congressional Republicans trying to attack Obamacare.

Immigration: Immigrants strengthen our society and have played a vital role in Florida becoming one of the leading economic states in the Union. Andrew is the only candidate for Governor who opposed both Donald Trump and Rick Scott’s policies that target immigrants.  During the child separation crisis, he spoke out loudly and forcefully against the Trump Administration’s inhumane and cruel zero-tolerance policy that separated young children from their parents. Gillum held Rick Scott and the Republicans accountable for their silence during this fight, and demanded Rick Scott support S. 3036, the Keeping Families Together Act.

LGTBQ Rights: Andrew has always been a staunch supporter of LGBTQ rights during his years as a public leader. As a City Commissioner, Gillum led the charge to expand domestic partner benefits for City employees. As Mayor, when more than a dozen counties were refusing to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Florida, Gillum raised his voice in opposition and extended an invitation for couples to get married in Florida’s capital – Tallahassee.

Women’s Rights: When women succeed, Florida succeeds. As Governor, Andrew would support the state legislature ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment. Florida should make it clear that civil rights will not be denied based on gender.  Andrew believes Florida must have Equal Pay for Equal Work, so women are given an equal opportunity to succeed at every level.  A Gillum administration will work to protect and encourage women-owned businesses and hire the best and brightest women to help lead our state forward.

Puerto Rico: Mayor Gillum is proud to stand with our fellow citizens from Puerto Rico — both as they recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, and as they strive for better-paying jobs, better-funded schools, and a state that puts everyday people first.  Andrew will stand in the gap for our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters to advocate for new federal legislation and assistance.

Jack Lippman

The “God Squad”

The “God Squad” was a TV program and a weekly newspaper column hosted by Rabbi Marc Gellman and the late Monsignor Tom Hartman.  (The two of them authored the popular book, “Religion for Dummies.”) Gellman continues the column; it appears each Friday in the Palm Beach Post.

In this season, many Jews’ observance of the High Holidays unfortunately does not include attendance at a temple or synagogue where they might be exposed to a sermon by a Rabbi.  By clicking right here though, they might find that role filled by Rabbi Gellman’s words from last week’s column.  Easy reading; nothing heavy! (Until you start thinking about it.)  And others might learn something new and enjoy reading it as well.  Click right here and learn about the swiveling menorah and a country which is "a pluribus in search of a unum.”

 JL

Medicare Information 

Those who supplement their traditional Medicare (not a Medicare Advantage Plan) with a Medigap or Medicare Supplement policy are probably aware that Medicare Part B covers 80% of the Medicare approved rate for most doctor bills.  Your Supplement plan (regardless of insurance company - these plans are standardized), subject to whatever co-pays or deductibles are involved with your choice of the standardized selection of plans, pays the other 20%.   For a $400 doctor bill, that amounts to saving you $80 out of your pocket.  But that’s NOT why you have a Medicare Supplement policy!   

You have it for that operation which Medicare approves for $120,000 (which the doctor cannot argue with even though he billed for more) and pays 80% percent of that, $96,000, leaving you obligated to pay that other $24,000!  That’s what you have the Supplement for!  Not the little stuff.

But, you might ask, why not avoid the need of paying almost anything at all, including the not insubstantial cost of a Medicare Supplement, by choosing a Medicare Advantage Plan?  Good question! 

When you do that, you and your family lose the ability to decide when a referral to a physician of your choice is desirable, and the ability to select a hospital of your choice.   In some plans, you may be able to exercise these choices, but in a limited manner and usually at a higher cost than if you had remained within the choice of doctors and hospitals fully participating in the plan.

Example:  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the nation’s top two cancer centers, both accept Medicare and Medicare Supplement insurance but do not routinely participate in Medicare Advantage plans and usually, will not accept them as coverage, although they may accept some to a limited extent.  

Both these hospitals’ web sites recommend contact with one’s Medicare Advantage Plan beforehand to determine to what extent they may or may not provide coverage in institutions like these.  A patient with such a plan may end up in an excellent hospital but possibly not the one they would prefer.

 JL

Questions for Republicans

Seven questions for Republicans, whether in Congress or out among the population of these United States:

(1)  Would you want your children to grow up to be like Donald Trump?

(2)  Would you approve of your daughter dating, or considering marrying, a man like Donald Trump?

(3)  What do you call a “witch hunt” that ends up catching real witches?

(4) Who, in you Party, was responsible for “vetting” now-admitted criminals like Paul Manafort, Paul Papadapoulos, Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen, allowing them into the “inner sanctums” of your otherwise bankrupt Party? 

(5)  Why were these soon-to-be-proven criminals even issued credentials to be admitted to Republican campaign events?  Terrorists wouldn’t have been admitted to the G.O.P.’s 2016 Cleveland convention, yet these criminals were.  Who knew and who didn’t know?

(6)   Why the hell are you still supporting Trump and his few remaining supporters in Congress who are cowering in fear of a primary attack from the right?   Think about that the next time you feel like joining him in screaming “Make America Great Again.”  

(7)  Are you a real American or something else?  Many Trump supporters indeed are “something else.”  Most Republicans really are true Americans but are afraid to admit it.  If they look around them, they will find that most Republicans think just like they do.  So why don’t YOU all step up and support “Impeachment, Conviction and Exile” (to Patagonia) for Donald?  (The Chileans or Argentinians who control the place might vomit at the thought of having him there, but it must be considered.)  Ivanka, Jared and Donald, Jr. will probably be welcome in Israel, at least by Bibi.  That has probably been long arranged.

JL

A Kitchen Hint

And while on the subject of cleaning out filth, have you ever considered cleaning your kitchen sink garbage disposal unit?  

It should be done periodically.  Not a big job either.   Check out your unit’s manual or Click right here.  


JL

A Book Review - It Happened in Germany Not So Long Ago

Ideas gotten from books are never equaled by what appears on the internet, on television or in theatres.  Books can be read, re-read and digested, deeply thought about or just skimmed over.  It is the reader’s choice.  The more transitory nature of other media lessens their impact and places them on a level lower than books.

Historian Benjamin Carter Hett’s 2018 book, “The Death of Democracy,” chronicles Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and the downfall of the Weimar Republic, the government which ruled Germany from the end of the First World War until 1932.  While very readable, the detail it provides about the many personalities, political parties, economic forces and ethnic and social groups which populated Germany in those years might be a bit boring to some.  Nevertheless, this is a book which should be on your reading list.  How high on that list, of course, is up to you.

Right now, here are some quotes from “The Death of Democracy” which might interest you.  They might even tempt you to read the entire book.

    “One of the challenges of understanding what the Nazi movement was all about comes from a basic fact of politics.  The Nazis were politicians: like all politicians, including fascists in other countries, they moved into the political space that was available to them, and their programs evolved to fit the supporters they attracted.” (page 98) 

Permit me to add that in those days, the 1920’s, “Nazi” was not yet the synonym for evil which that word later became.  It was merely a shortening of the party’s full name – the National Socialists. (It was a party of “anti’s,” anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-Semitic, anti-intellectual … and became a home for those with many such hatreds.)

Quoting the words spoken in 1932 by Kurt Schumacher, eventually the Social Democratic Party’s leader both before and immediately after World War Two, “The whole National Socialist agitation is a constant appeal to the inner swine in human beings.  If we recognize anything at all about National Socialism, it is the fact that it has succeeded for the first time in German politics in completely mobilizing human stupidity.” (page 128)

     The burning of the Reichstag in 1933, probably the work of Nazi arsonists to justify their cracking down violently on their opponents, was a matter of dispute at the time. Hett quotes a German woman writing to her daughter in Holland and who “noted with approval that a Social Democratic editor had been arrested because he had told the foreign press that the Nazis might have set fire to the Reichstag.  One need not be surprised any longer, she continued, that such false news about the National Socialists is always being spread by the foreign press.” (page 193)  Supporters of the Nazis always considered unfavorable news about the Party to be “false news.”

In 1932, the various conservative movements in Germany, unwilling to work with the more liberal Social Democrats, concluded that they needed the support of the Nazis to remain in power.  

They thought they could temporarily use Hitler, who had the support of millions of Germans, to their advantage, even while recognizing the despicable nature of his party’s agenda.  Sadly, the reverse turned out to be true and once given a foothold in the government, the Nazis quickly destroyed German democracy.  Contributing to this was the practice of German political parties of having some sort of ceremonial paramilitary adjunct, which potentially armed them with something more than mere rhetoric.  The Nazis had their “stormtroopers” and did not hesitate to use them in dealing violently with their opponents.

At this point, it’s time to recall the advice of philosopher George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  These words have frequently been applied to the lessons of history.

JL

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