Link Roundup October 2017

[wepon]

Why Is American Health Care So Ridiculously Expensive?

First, it really starts with the prices. While some developed countries have one health care insurance plan for everybody -- where the government either sets prices or oversees price negotiations -- the U.S. is unique in our reliance on for-profit insurance companies to pay for both essential and elective care. Twenty cents from every $1 goes, not to health care, but to "marketing, underwriting, administration, and profit," he says. In a system where government doesn't negotiate prices down, prices will be higher. In a system where for-profit companies need profit margins and advertising, prices will be higher.

Catalonia referendum: Outcry as Spanish high court orders Google to take down voting app

Catalonia’s High Court ordered the tech company to stop offering an app being used to help people cast votes in the election, saying it violated a court order seeking to suspend the vote. Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemont, had sent a tweet earlier this week to his 350,000 followers encouraging them to use the tool.

Everyone in Catalonia is going on strike after police violence at referendum

At least 844 people were injured after the authorities clashed with people trying to cast their votes in an independence referendum.

Union leader and buster Ronald Reagan to be inducted in Labor Hall of Honor

Acosta noted that as president of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1940s and '50s, Reagan led the union through three strikes and negotiated health and pension benefits and residual payments for members. However, as U.S. president in 1981, Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers, banned them from government jobs for life and decertified their union. A new union was only formed years later.

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 of which were on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.

Jaywalking case exposes law enforcement embedded in far-left group

The footage disturbs seasoned activist Eric Verlo, who was among the ticketed protesters, on multiple fronts: that the undercover deputy had a loaded firearm with the safety off in his waistband the whole time; that his expletive-laden response to apprehending officers could've been an attempt to incite other protesters to resist arrest; and most of all, that local law enforcement saw fit to infiltrate a group whose most scandalous act was basically jaywalking.

'Hazards of Homosexuality' Flier Distributed at Values Voter Summit

Trump received a standing ovation at the Value Voters summit, which was organized by the Family Research Council (FRC), when he said in his remarks Friday that Americans "don't worship government, we worship God." He became the first sitting president to address the annual gathering of evangelical conservatives, a powerful bloc that helped propel him to the White House in November.

New Order Indefinitely Bars Almost All Travel From Seven Countries

Starting next month, most citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea will be banned from entering the United States, Mr. Trump said in a proclamation released Sunday night. Citizens of Iraq and some groups of people in Venezuela who seek to visit the United States will face restrictions or heightened scrutiny. Mr. Trump’s original travel ban caused turmoil at airports in January and set off a furious legal challenge to the president’s authority. It was followed in March by a revised ban, which expired on Sunday even as the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about its constitutionality on Oct. 10. The new order — Chad, North Korea and Venezuela are new to the list of affected countries and Sudan has been dropped — will take effect Oct. 18.

Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist

A blogger whose posts often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers, Caruana Galizia was recently described by the Politico website as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”. Her blogs were a thorn in the side of both the establishment and underworld figures that hold sway in Europe’s smallest member state. Her most recent revelations pointed the finger at Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, connecting offshore companies linked to the three men with the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan.