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Can Trump count on Manila to put pressure on North Korea? 3 points to know.

       




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The state of tech policy, one year into the Trump administration

Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address offers the president an opportunity to list his achievements over the past year and outline his policy agenda for the year to come. In the realm of technology policy, the past year has seen an emptying out of key science advisory positions, the repeal of existing net…

       




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Ryan Hass speaks on a panel about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, hosted by the World Economic Forum in Amman, Jordan

On April 7, Ryan Hass spoke on a panel about China's Belt and Road Initiative and China's relations with the Middle East during a session of the "World Economic Forum on the Middle East and Africa," which was held in Amman, Jordan.

       




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The stunning ignorance of Trump's health care plan


One cannot help feeling a bit silly taking seriously the policy proposals of a person who seems not to take policy seriously himself. Donald Trump's policy positions have evolved faster over the years than a teenager's moods. He was for a woman's right to choose; now he is against it. He was for a wealth tax to pay off the national debt before proposing a tax plan that would enrich the wealthy and balloon the national debt. He was for universal health care but opposed to any practical way to achieve it.

Based on his previous flexibility, Trump's here-today proposals may well be gone tomorrow. As a sometime-Democrat, sometime-Republican, sometime-independent, who is now the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump has just issued his latest pronouncements on health care policy. So, what the hell, let's give them more respect than he has given his own past policy statements.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those earlier pronouncements are notable for their detachment from fact and lack of internal logic. The one-time supporter of universal health care now joins other candidates in his newly-embraced party in calling for repeal of the only serious legislative attempt in American history to move toward universal coverage, the Affordable Care Act. Among his stated reasons for repeal, he alleges that the act has "resulted in runaway costs," promoted health care rationing, reduced competition and narrowed choice.

Each of these statements is clearly and demonstrably false. Health care spending per person has grown less rapidly in the six years since the Affordable Care Act was enacted than in any corresponding period in the last four decades. There is now less health care rationing than at any time in living memory, if the term rationing includes denial of care because it is unaffordable. Rationing because of unaffordability is certainly down for the more than 20 million people who are newly insured because of the Affordable Care Act. Hospital re-admissions, a standard indicator of low quality, are down, and the health care exchanges that Trump now says he would abolish, but that resemble the "health marts" he once espoused, have brought more choice to individual shoppers than private employers now offer or ever offered their workers.

Trump's proposed alternative to the Affordable Care Act is even worse than his criticism of it. He would retain the highly popular provision in the act that bars insurance companies from denying people coverage because of preexisting conditions, a practice all too common in the years before the health care law. But he would do away with two other provisions of the Affordable Care Act that are essential to make that reform sustainable: the mandate that people carry insurance and the financial assistance to make that requirement feasible for people of modest means.

Without those last two provisions, barring insurers from using preexisting conditions to jack up premiums or deny coverage would destroy the insurance market. Why? Because without the mandate and the financial aid, people would have powerful financial incentives to wait until they were seriously ill to buy insurance. They could safely do so, confident that some insurer would have to sell them coverage as soon as they became ill. Insurers that set affordable prices would go broke. If insurers set prices high enough to cover costs, few customers could afford them.

In simple terms, Trump's promise to bar insurers from using preexisting conditions to screen customers but simultaneously to scrap the companion provisions that make the bar feasible is either the fraudulent offer of a huckster who takes voters for fools, or clear evidence of stunning ignorance about how insurance works. Take your pick.

Unfortunately, none of the other Republican candidates offers a plan demonstrably superior to Trump's. All begin by calling for repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. But none has yet advanced a well-crafted replacement.

It is not that the Affordable Care Act is perfect legislation. It isn't. But, as the old saying goes, you can't beat something with nothing. And so far as health care reform is concerned, nothing is what the Republican candidates now have on offer.


Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in U.S. News and World Report.

Authors

Publication: U.S. News and World Report
Image Source: © Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
      
 
 




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After the Trump-Kim summit 2.0: What’s next for US policy on North Korea?

The summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un on February 27 and 28 in Vietnam brought the two leaders together for the second time in less than a year. U.S.-North Korea negotiations on nuclear issues have been at a stalemate since the first summit in Singapore that touted lofty…

       




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The Future of Spectrum


Executive Summary

In recent years, growth in demand for wireless services has sparked a boom in the mobile phone and wireless data sector.[i] During the past four years, the number of mobile phone subscribers tripled,[ii] and the number of jobs in the telecommunications field has nearly quintupled.[iii] New, better, and faster mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, have created multi-billion dollar industries of their own, such as Google Android and the Apple iOS “app stores.”[iv] And those technologies have contributed to the dawning of an always-on, always-connected culture.

But this growing demand for mobile Internet access requires a growing amount of wireless radio spectrum, portending serious problems for the future. At the moment, the United States has designated 547 MHz of spectrum to wireless broadband services, but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) predicts a need for 637 MHz of spectrum by 2013, and 822 MHz of spectrum by 2014.[v] Without more spectrum allocated to wireless Internet connectivity, America risks short-circuiting the mobile broadband revolution.

The National Broadband Plan proposes a solution. It sets forth a detailed plan to make 300 MHz of spectrum available for wireless broadband use within the next five years, and another 200 MHz in the five years after that.[vi] It seeks to achieve this freeing of spectrum by auctioning unused spectrum, lifting burdensome regulations to enable wireless broadband service in certain spectrum ranges, and reallocating spectrum from other services – notably broadcast television – to enable such spectrum to be used for wireless broadband.[vii] Though many of these provisions are controversial, the FCC has already done serious work to achieve these goals. If the FCC can achieve its goals to enable the growth of wireless broadband, America will be able to unlock the full potential of the wireless broadband revolution and realize the potential of a new wave of American innovation.



[i] Federal Communications Commission, Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan 78 (2010) [hereinafter National Broadband Plan].

[ii] Id.

[iii] Lawrence H. Summers, Remarks on the President's Spectrum Initiative As Prepared for Delivery (2010 June 28).

[iv] Robin Wauters, Report: Mobile App Market Will Be Worth $25 Billion By 2015 – Apple’s Share: 20 percent, TechCrunch.com, 2011 January 18, http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/18/report-mobile-app-market-will-be-worth-25-billion-by-2015-apples-share-20/

[v] Federal Communications Commission, Mobile Broadband: The Benefits of Additional Spectrum 18 (2011) , available at http://download.broadband.gov/plan/fcc-staff-technical-paper-mobile-broadband-benefits-of-additional-spectrum.pdf (hereinafter Benefits of Additional Spectrum). [hereinafter Benefits of Additional Spectrum].

[vi] See National Broadband Plan, supra note 1, at 84.

[vii] Id.

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Authors

Image Source: © Luke MacGregor / Reuters
      
 
 




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Mexico is a prop in President Trump’s political narrative

When it comes to his country’s relationship with Mexico, U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to take a position that is at once reckless and suicidal. Reckless, because he is single-handedly scuttling a bilateral relationship with a nation that is vital to the prosperity, security, and well-being of the U.S. Suicidal, because the punitive tariffs…

       




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Previewing this Week’s Public Forum on Immigration Reform at Claremont McKenna College

Today at Claremont McKenna College, a new bipartisan public forum—the Dreier Roundtable—will convene leaders in politics, business, journalism and academia to hold constructive, substantive discussions about immigration reform. Just days after the midterm elections of 2014, the panel of experts will examine the strengths and weaknesses of current immigration policy and debate the economic and…

       




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Brookings experts on Trump’s UNGA speech

On September 25, 2018, President Trump delivered his second address to the United Nations General Assembly. The speech was highly anticipated in light of President Trump’s often skeptical view of international institutions and multilateral cooperation, as well as recent tensions over U.S.-China trade, the future of the Iran nuclear deal and talks with North Korea,…

       




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Can Iran weather the Trump storm?

The recent tightening of oil sanctions has revived speculation about their dire consequences for Iran’s economy. The end to waivers for eight countries that under U.S. sanctions were allowed to import oil from Iran, announced last week, is sure to worsen the already bleak economic situation in Iran, but predictions of economic collapse are highly…

       




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To talk or not to talk to Trump: A question that divides Iran

Earlier this month, Iran further expanded its nuclear enrichment program, taking another step away from the nuclear accord it had signed with world powers in July 2015. Since President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the accord, on May 2018, and re-imposed U.S. sanctions, Iran’s economy has lost nearly 10 percent of its output. Although the…

       




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Trump’s blind march to war

Before U.S. President Donald Trump decided to withdraw his country from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018, Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister and the nuclear agreement’s chief Iranian architect, was the most popular public figure in his country. A year after the withdrawal, a University of Maryland poll shows, Zarif’s popularity was…

       




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Politics Trump Economics in the Complex Game of Eastern Mediterranean Hydrocarbons


A 2010 publication of the U.S. Geological Survey caused major excitement in Cyprus, an island that at the time was suffering from the economic collapse of its neighbor and major trading partner, Greece. According to the publication, the seabed of the Eastern Mediterranean could contain up to 120 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas.3 Three years later, the Cypriot administration has high hopes that natural gas exports may get Cyprus—the third smallest European Union member state—back on its feet, after its own financial collapse in 2012. Unfortunately for the Cypriots, the reality on the ground is sobering, and it is currently unclear whether Cyprus will become a producer, or an exporter, of natural gas. Around Cyprus, other countries hope to benefit from the energy potential as well, including Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. In the Israeli Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), in particular, substantial reserves of natural gas have been found, though the verdict is out whether these will in fact all be produced.

Exploration of Cyprus’s offshore concessions is at an early stage. Energy majors such as ENI and Total are among the first to explore possible gas (and oil) reserves and they expect results not before 2015. To date, only two test wells have been drilled by Houston-based Noble Energy. Proven reserves have been downgraded since and are currently estimated to be between 3 and 5 tcf. At this level of reserves, investing in a natural gas liquefaction terminal, which the Cypriot administration has supported, is not economically viable. A better alternative would be to construct a pipeline to Turkey, which has a large and rapidly growing market for natural gas.

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Trump admin removes White House Capital Bikeshare station

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The Oil Drum reaches peak content

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Sorry, Trump. US coal plant retirements second highest ever

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10 endangered species the Trump administration may kill off entirely

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Guns to Drums: An Orchestra Made of Old Weapons

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Trump loosens restrictions on ethanol, increases smog

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From the Forums: Green Homes for Haiti

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Kilgali Amendment would phase out climate-changing HFC refrigerants. Will Trump ratify it?

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Is anyone actually listening to Trump about climate change?

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Trump may use climate change funds to build his wall

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How many people will Trump's fuel efficiency rollback kill?

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Old Chapel Is Made into a Giant Musical Instrument, Controlled with Laser Pointers (Video)

A Czech church was 3-D mapped and made into a one of a kind musical instrument, controlled by visitors' laser pointers.




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Rumpl's sleeping bag blanket is made from recycled plastic

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The eternal conundrum of dog poop

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Trump voters need LED bulbs

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Boerum Apparel sells classic sweatshirts with a fully transparent supply chain

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Trump's infrastructure plan: Red State roadbuilders can party like it's 1959

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More Rumor Mongering Against US EPA - What Gives?

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Dirty coal-fired aluminum gets a boost with new Trump tariff

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Pallets, Tires, Garbage Bags and Plastic Drums Turned into Lovely Playground in Niamey

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State of Missouri bans Agenda 21; What would Harry Truman Say?

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Arum, a Biodegradable Ring of Ashes for a Tree Creates a Place of Remembrance

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