Porn Star Running For Democratic Nomination & Other Political Briefs

Are we now Italy? The Hill reports that a porn star has announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination:

A porn star and a rapper say they have what it takes to win the White House in 2020.

Cherie DeVille, who’s starred in such videos as “Ass Planet” and “Hot Tub Hottie,” says she was inspired to run for office out of her “personal frustration for the current political climate.”

When Donald Trump won the election last year, DeVille — who’s running alongside rapper Coolio — says she sobbed. “I didn’t cry because I hated [Trump] specifically, I cried because of what I felt that meant for the direction our country was going in.”

“We’re voting for people as if we’re on a reality television show, and my concern is if we continue to purely vote for celebrities, or political figures, or the most entertaining, they’re not always going to be quality politicians,” DeVille told ITK on Tuesday.

So the 39-year-old adult film performer decided to toss her hat in the political ring, saying she’s planning on running as a Democrat.

“If our criteria now for becoming a political official is minor celebrity, I have that,” says DeVille, who boasts 190,000 Twitter followers. “I feel like I can be potentially what I’m feeling the American people — for better or for worse — want, which is interesting news, scandalous news, you know, not ‘boring’ political news.”

“But at the same time [I can] do what the American people really need,” she continues, which is “having a person with integrity, and having someone listen to the people, and actually care about America in public office.”

A former physical therapist, DeVille — whose campaign slogan is “Make America F—— Awesome Again” — says a lot of people “giggle” when they learn that “Gangsta’s Paradise” rapper Coolio is running as her VP.

The Guardian has a story under the headline Christopher Steele believes his dossier on Trump-Russia is 70-90% accurate. So, in other words, he admits that his dossier, which fueled much of the Russia-gate hysteria (and which Clinton and the DNC hid the fact that they paid for) could be 30% false.

Portions of the left and libertarian right do often share some views in common. For example, CounterPunch today has a post on The Logic of Drug Legalization:

The Drug Lords of today exist because of the extraordinary profits resulting from criminalization. Estimates run in the half a trillion range globally per year. By way of comparison there are only twenty or so countries with a national economy of that size. The situation is exactly analogous to the prohibition era. When gunfights, beatings, murders and firebombs were the business strategy of choice for the pushers of alcohol. Once booze was legalized the bootleggers were immediately driven out of business. Alcohol is heavily taxed today there are however no Bootlegging Lords on the playground pushing cheaper booze on our children.

Nor would such pushers exist for any other drug that we might choose to legalize. Sure the criminals could evade the cost of taxes on their product but there are enormous costs incurred by criminal enterprises that don’t apply to legal ones. This is why marijuana today is sold for hundreds of times what it costs to grow. Our legal producers will not be faced with those costs and so can sell to us below current prices on the street. With profit margins cut to the bone the ‘dread lords and masters’ that control the illegal drug market today will simply melt away like the last snow before the advancing spring…

Matthew Yglesias writes at Vox, Bill Clinton should have resigned: What he did to Monica Lewinsky was wrong, and he should have paid the price. What is amazing about this is that it comes from a usually very pro-Democratic Party source. Now that they aren’t concerned about white washing the past for Hillary, some Democrats might be able to face the truth about at least some aspects of their party.

Also at Vox, yet another reason to oppose the Republican tax bill: Republicans’ tax bill could trigger a $25 billion cut to Medicare.

Periodically I see articles from people who have good intentions but don’t understand how health care really works argue that we should end private practice and have all doctors become employees to save costs. The reality is that this trend has increased costs rather than save money, as discussed in this article at Modern Healthcare entitled Hospital-employed physicians drain Medicare:

“When hospitals grow their physician network, with a subsidy of $150,000 to $200,000 per physician, they have to cover those costs by driving ancillary services and (getting more people) in hospital beds,” said Dr. Jeffrey LeBenger, CEO of Summit Health Management, an integrated, physician-led independent physician group that includes some 800 doctors. One of the main drivers of physician acquisitions is to increase referral networks, he said.

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