March 23, 2024

Saturday, March 23, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

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Jill is always busy.

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Kamala is always busy.

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Happening in the House of Representatives.

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Biden-Harris 2024 recognizes that Social Security and the Affordable Care Act must be protected. Trump and his cult have promised to cut Social Security back and end the ACA.

Nancy Chassman, a subscriber to the Roundup, compared the policies of the candidates and the parties in this letter published in the Berkshire Edge.

Share this 👇 with your networks and yes, write your own letters to national and local media on the contrasts and issues important to you. This is how we win hearts and voters.

Which candidate has actually demonstrated that he will do the work to protect and expand healthcare? Since both Trump and Biden have served as president, their records offer every voter a window into what they would do if elected in November.

BY LETTER TO THE EDITOR, BERKSHIRE EDGE
POSTED ON MARCH 4, 2024

To the editor:

“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.”

This simple proverb never seemed more important than in this year’s presidential election. As the election gets closer, it feels like the perfect storm. So much divisiveness in America today. Between red states and blue states. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. The cracks are deepening even within the parties: Moderate Republicans struggling to maintain a party now dominated by MAGA; Clinton Democrats and progressives appear to be out of step with each other.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a “glass-half-empty” person, it may feel as if the rifts will never heal. The two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, could not be more different from one another.

The contrast between the two visions they paint for America is stark. So we American voters might take refuge from this “perfect storm” by staying in our silos. And yet, if we could remove all the noise coming at us from TV and social media, we would likely see that when it comes to many of the so-called kitchen table issues, our views are not so different from one another. It is just a question of which candidate is genuinely working to advance solutions.

Case in point is every American’s desire for safe and affordable healthcare. If we need prescription medicine for a chronic illness, we all hope that the cost is something we can live with. If a loved one needs hospitalization, every one of us hopes they are not bankrupted by the cost. Which candidate has actually demonstrated that he will do the work to protect and expand healthcare? Since both Trump and Biden have served as president, their records offer every voter a window into what they would do if elected in November.

Trump’s campaign position for the 2024 election is that he will protect Medicare. He also made this campaign promise when he ran for president in 2016. But for the duration of his presidency, he did the exact opposite. In 2017, Trump, supported by a Republican majority in the House and Senate, enacted a sprawling tax cut for corporate America. The centerpiece of this complex tax legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, was a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The impact of this giant gift to large corporations was a shrinking of the available funding for Medicare and Social Security by an estimated $595 billion. This Republican strategy to reduce Medicare and Social Security through huge tax cuts, which they fondly call “starving the beast,” allows them to hide their true intentions and falsely claim they are protecting these programs.

Taking a deeper dive into Trump’s actions on Medicare and healthcare while he was president reveals more of this “starve the beast” strategy. Trump’s budget proposals for fiscal years 2018, 2019, and 2020 included enormous cuts to the funding of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Fortunately, these proposed cuts were scrapped by Congress. And throughout his term in office, Trump tried to do away with the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare). In fact, the 2017 Trump tax legislation repealed the federal individual mandate requirement, a significant funding component of Obamacare. By doing this, it was projected that the number of Americans without healthcare would increase by 13 million by 2027.

The Affordable Care Act was enacted during the Obama Administration under the leadership of former President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden. Obamacare advanced the goal of health equity for all Americans more than any piece of legislation in decades. It made health insurance more affordable for everyone by providing subsidies to Americans with income below a certain threshold. It expanded the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138 percent of the poverty level. As a result of Obamacare, health plans cannot deny people coverage or charge them more because they have a preexisting condition.

While Trump was mostly unsuccessful in repealing Obamacare or getting his budget cuts to Medicare approved by Congress, he did manage to deliver a significant blow to Medicare when he signed an executive order in October 2019 that restricted seniors citizens’ choice of healthcare providers and shifted Medicare programs in the direction of private plans. Ironically, this executive order was called “Protecting and Improving Medicare for our Nation’s Seniors.”

In contrast, President Biden has been relentless in preserving Medicare and expanding on the important accomplishments of Obamacare during his presidency. In March 2021, just two months after he took office, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to help Americans recover from the pandemic.

Among the many benefits this legislation implemented were provisions to assist families in meeting healthcare expenses. The ARP increased the number of people eligible for financial assistance to help pay for healthcare coverage. It also lowered the premiums for health plans in which individuals were already enrolled.

In 2022, working with Congress in his signature bipartisan fashion, President Biden shepherded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA focused on the spiraling costs of prescription drugs, particularly for senior citizens. The IRA instituted lower prescription drug prices and established a cap on insulin at $35 per month for Medicare recipients. This led drug companies to drastically reduce insulin prices for Americans not benefitting from the $35 cap. The IRA also provided that Medicare recipients would have no co-pay for certain vaccinations and a yearly cap of $2,000 on out-of-pocket prescription drugs starting in 2025.

Unlike Trump’s budget proposals, President Biden’s budget initiatives throughout his presidency sought to build on Obamacare and strengthen Medicare. If approved, Biden’s 2024 budget proposal would extend the life of the Medicare trust fund by 25 years (thereby making it solvent into the 2050s). The 2024 budget plan would further enhance Medicare solvency by eliminating certain loopholes on Medicare taxes for individuals earning over $400,000 per year.

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, or consider yourself moderate, MAGA, or progressive, having affordable healthcare is a fundamental need and right of every human being. President Joe Biden is the candidate with a proven record of protecting and expanding healthcare for every American. Don’t listen to what they say; look at what they’ve done.

Nancy Chassman
Becket

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Enroute to the finish line in November, more madness.

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If you object to this hiring, write to NBC. I did.

Ronna McDaniel has been named as a commentator on NBC and MSNBC shortly after she was forced to step down as head of the Republican National Committee. She had held that position since 2017 as Trump’s personal appointee. She was known for her uncompromising support for Trump, lying and covering for him.

Here 👇 is my email.

Hiring Ronna McDaniel as an NBC on-air commentator is not acceptable, not because I disagree with her, but because she lies and lies in service of a man who has committed crimes and endangers our Democracy.

What are you thinking? There are many of us who will flee NBC and its affiliates if you go through with this immoral plan, not worthy of a News company.

The email address I sent this to is nbcnewsdigitalcontact@nbcuni.com

Here is the head of NBC.

Rashida.Jones@nbcuni.com

Trump seems to have made 3 billion dollars yesterday. Really.

Trump Media merger wins investor approval, netting Trump potential windfall.

Former president will own about 60 percent of Truth Social, which at its current share price would be worth about $3.3 billion. A lockup agreement will prevent him from selling the shares for six months.

Shareholders voted Friday to take former president Donald Trump’s media company public, a long-delayed move that will open the owner of Truth Social to stock-market investors and grant Trump a stake worth billions of dollars he could use to pay down his legal debts.


The vote Friday by investors in Digital World Acquisition authorized the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group as part of a process that will avoid a more traditional public offering. (Washington Post).

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How to Find New York City’s Cherry Blossoms.

For those who love basketball, March Madness is one of the pleasures of spring, and for even more of us, I suspect, Spring is defined by the Cherry Blossoms.

This Times article is a gift to those in the New York are who spend April in quest of cherry blossoms. There are time tables and interactive charts of where and when to see this beauty . . .

Some cherry trees have already begun to bloom, but there are still weeks of pink and white flowers ahead.

Make your plans, and don’t forget to appreciate some daffodils and tulips along the way.

How to Find New York City’s Cherry Blossoms.

Some cherry trees have already begun to bloom, but there are still weeks of pink and white flowers ahead.

After months of dreary weather and bare branches, it’s finally cherry blossom season in New York City.

This means that roughly 35,000 ornamental cherry trees around the city will be bursting with white and pink petals for the next month or so, drawing thousands of people outside to enjoy them.

Here’s an overview of what kind of cherry blossoms are in New York City, when they’ll bloom and where you can find them.

When is peak cherry blossom season?

Most of New York’s cherry trees are in bloom by mid-April, though for certain types it can be a bit earlier or later. Once a tree starts blooming, it’ll hold its blossoms for about 10 days.

When, exactly, each tree begins to flower can be hard to predict, and depends on the temperature and the amount of daylight it receives. Because the past few winters have been relatively mild, the city’s cherry trees have been blooming a little earlier than usual.

This year, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the first bloom was recorded on March 10, Shauna Moore, the garden’s director of horticulture, said. But peak bloom, when rows and rows of vibrant pink flowers appear on the garden’s Cherry Esplanade and Cherry Walk, is still a few weeks away.

Visitors can check CherryWatch, an online tracker run by garden staff members, to keep tabs on when the blooms might arrive. The staff members check each cherry tree every morning to determine whether it is in prebloom, first bloom, peak bloom or post-peak bloom, and update the tracker accordingly.

Ms. Moore said many people enjoy visiting the garden in the days and weeks after peak bloom, when petals fall from the trees.

“There is something so beautiful about a carpet of pink petals,” she said.

What kinds of cherry trees can be found in New York?

There are 26 types of flowering cherry trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden alone, but the New York City Parks Department said that across the city, the three most common types are the Okame, Yoshino and Kwanzan.

The pink-flowered Okame usually begins blooming in mid- to late March or early April, but the Yoshino (which has white flowers) and the Kwanzan (which is pink and can produce up to 28 petals on each blossom) may still have flowers in late April or early May.

Matthew Morrow, the director of horticulture for the city’s Parks Department, said his team cares for between 7,000 and 8,000 cherry trees.

“We love them not only for their blooms, but because they’re relatively short, so they have a practical purpose. They grow under power lines well,” he said.

The Parks Department plants new cherry trees acquired from local nurseries almost every year, Mr. Morrow said.

His favorites are the fledgling winter flowering cherries grown from cuttings taken from a 1,000-year-old tree, called the Miharu Takizakura, in Japan. The cuttings were a gift from the Japanese government, Mr. Morrow said, and they were carefully cultivated for years before finally being planted in Dr. Ronald McNair Park and Amersfort Park in Brooklyn.

“They are still relatively small, maybe seven feet tall,” he said. “But there are these beautiful groves that are basically the children of a thousand-year-old giant in Japan. I’m quite proud of them.”

Where are the best places to see cherry blossoms in New York City?

By filtering for the species “Japanese Flowering Cherry” on the Parks Department’s New York City Street Tree Map, you can see the exact locations of thousands of cherry trees.

Sakura Park, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, got its name from the 2,000 cherry trees that were sent to New York City’s parks from Japan in 1912. Nearby, cherry trees run alongside the Riverside Park Cherry Walk from 100th Street to 125th Street, and there’s a smaller walkway of cherry trees in Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem, near the entrance on 124th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Most of the cherry trees in Central Park are found between 72nd Street and 96th Street. There are 35 Yoshino trees on the east side of the Central Park Reservoir (and plenty of pink cherry trees on the west side). The park has lots of other popular spots — including Cherry Hill, Pilgrim Hill, the Great Lawn and Cedar Hill — listed on its website.

Downtown, there are usually late-blooming Kwanzan trees in Union Square and Madison Square Park (where you can also spot one Yoshino tree along Fifth Avenue), and several Yoshino trees in Washington Square Park.

In the Bronx, the New York Botanical Garden has more than 200 cherry trees on its grounds, including a row of the pink weeping variety near the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. The garden’s Spring Bloom Trackershows the current status of cherry blossoms, magnolias, daffodils, azaleas, peonies, lilacs and roses. Pelham Bay Park also has Yoshino cherry trees near the City Island Bridge.

On Randall’s Island, the trees will bloom near the island’s Urban Farm and Fields 62 and 63. And there will be an Earth Day Festival on April 20 to celebrate the various flora on the island, including the cherry trees. Roosevelt Island, between Manhattan and Queens, has its own collection of cherry trees that can be seen along the island’s West Promenade.

In Queens, Flushing Meadows Corona Park has a remarkable collection of Okame cherry trees near the Unisphere, which are usually some of the first in the city to bloom, according to the Parks Department. In Long Island City, Hunter’s Point South Park has a ring of Yoshino cherry trees that frame the waterfront park. (Four new cherry trees were added in 2021, on Earth Day.)

The Queens Botanical Garden has ornamental trees in its Cherry Circle, and Astoria’s Rainey Park has its own collection of Okame and Kwanzan cherry blossoms by the East River.

In Brooklyn, Green-Wood Cemetery has a collection of 172 cherry trees. They can also be found in Prospect Park (near the Grand Army Plaza entrance), Bushwick’s Maria Hernandez Park and Sunset Park.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has more than 200 cherry trees, 76 of which can be found lining its famous Cherry Esplanade. The annual Sakura Matsuri festival — which used to draw up to 50,000 people over the course of a weekend — was discontinued in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the garden replaced it with cherry-blossom-related programming over three“weekends in bloom.” It has also extended hoursthrough much of the spring, according to Elizabeth Reina-Longoria, the garden’s director of marketing and communications.

Staten Island has trees spread out throughout Conference House Park and Clove Lakes Park. There are also trees on the northern side of the lake in Silver Lake Park and along Cottage Row at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden. (You can use the Parks Department’s Staten Island Bloom Guide to find out when some of these trees will be blossoming.)

And if you’re up for a trip to New Jersey, the Essex County Cherry Blossom Festival is happening at Branch Brook Park in Newark from April 6 to April 14. There, people can see 5,000 cherry trees — one of the largest collections in the United States.

But if you miss some (or all) of the blossoms, don’t sweat it.

“They come, they put on a really big show, and then they fade away,” Mr. Morrow said. “It really makes you feel good to be alive, and realize our time here is fleeting and we should try and enjoy it.”

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As to basketball on the weekend . . .

Is Iowa’s Caitlin Clark the greatest women’s college basketball player ever?

When does Caitlin Clark play again?

Caitlin’s next game in March Madness 2024—her first in this year's tournament—will be on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET. They'll play Holy Cross, who blew out the UT Martin 72-45 in the First Four game on Thursday, per USA Today.

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Have a good weekend. I expect to be back on Tuesday.

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