CNN has a surprisingly even handed report China: No negotiation on ‘One China’ policy despite Trump remarks as long as you don’t read too much in the headline.

China’s Foreign Ministry firmly pushed back Saturday against President-elect Donald Trump’s suggestion that the “One China” policy on Taiwan is negotiable, calling it the “political foundation” of the relationship between the US and China.

China views Taiwan as a renegade province and, since 1979, the US has acknowledged Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, with US-China relations governed by a set of protocols known as the “One China” policy.

I am sure that unlike President Obama’s poor negotiation skills on either side of an argument, that Donald Trump realizes that calling something non-negotiable is a standard negotiating ploy. Part of the negotiations will be to try to get China to negotiate this point.

I am loath for our country to make a decision on the future of Taiwan without giving the people of Taiwan a say on the agreement. China may be “right” in how they view Taiwan, but the fact remains that the people may like the life they have established for themselves in Taiwan over the last 60 years. What right do we have to decide for them how they should live in the future? This is especially true now that the Government of mainland China and the government on Taiwan have made contact with each other. They can negotiate the outcome between the two of them.

China has the perfect right to explain to us what their concerns over Taiwan are. We have a perfect right to explain to them what our concerns are. We should understand this is part of negotiating. Neither side should be forced into making an agreement that they do not want to accept. Saber rattling from either side should not sway the negotiations in any direction. Each side needs to make that clear to the other side.

I suppose in a negotiation each side could come to the understanding that you can rattle your saber, and we will rattle ours back, but in the end we will have a peaceful negotiation.

I wonder if this is too much for the corporate media, the oligarchs, and eventually the citizens of our country to understand.

Bernie Sanders posted a press release about his amendment Senate to Vote on Sanders Amendment to Lower Rx Prices. The article has a link to the amendment’s wording.

AMENDMENT intended to be proposed by Mr. SANDERS
Viz:
1 At the end of title III, add the following:
2 SEC. 3 . DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND RELATING
3 TO LOWERING PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES
4 FOR AMERICANS BY IMPORTING DRUGS
5 FROM CANADA AND OTHER COUNTRIES.
6 The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of
7 the Senate may revise the allocations of a committee or
8 committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in
9 this resolution for one or more bills, joint resolutions,
10 amendments, amendments between the Houses, motions,

1 or conference reports relating to lowering prescription
2 drug prices, including through the importation of safe and
3 affordable prescription drugs by American pharmacists,
4 wholesalers, and individuals with a valid prescription from
5 a provider licensed to practice in the United States, by
6 the amounts provided in such legislation for those pur-
7 poses, provided that such legislation would not increase
8 the deficit over either the period of the total of fiscal years
9 2017 through 2021 or the period of the total of fiscal
10 years 2017 through 2026.

The New Republic has the article Cory Booker’s explanation for voting against cheap prescription drugs doesn’t track which quotes Booker’s explanation.

I support the importation of prescription drugs as a key part of a strategy to help control the skyrocketing cost of medications. Any plan to allow the importation of prescription medications should also include consumer protections that ensure foreign drugs meet American safety standards. I opposed an amendment put forward last night that didn’t meet this test. The rising cost of medications is a life-and-death issue for millions of Americans, which is why I also voted for amendments last night that bring drug prices down and protect Medicare’s prescription drug benefit. I‎’m committed to finding solutions that allow for prescription drug importation with adequate safety standards.

Booker can say this with a strait face as if Sanders’ amendment did not have the words “including through the importation of safe and affordable prescription drugs”?

William Kilmer posted a comment on the article “Cory Booker’s Crucificion Has The Attention of Every Democrat in DC”.

For those of you who have not been playing along at home, Senator Bernie Sanders offered a measure, along with Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, which would have permitted the re-importation of U.S. made pharmaceuticals. This would have substantially reduced the cost to American consumers.

Kilmer explained about the comment about U.S. made drugs.

The comment was made during the debate that importing drugs from Canada would in many, perhaps most cases, be re-importing drugs manufactured in the United States.

When I read the doubts that Booker claims to have about safety, I think that he is really implying some astounding things that we need to emphasize. As for the re-importation of drugs made in the USA, he is either implying that something goes wrong with the drugs when they cross the border and come back or he is saying the US manufacturers make an inferior product to ship to Canada. The second interpretation should shake to the roots our trust in the ethics of drug makers. Surely they would not want people in the US, nor people in Canada to have questions about the safety of what gets shipped to Canada. Also take into account that the cost of a drug does not primarily depend on the cost of the ingredients nor the cost of the of the manufacturing process. Most of the cost is an effort by the drug companies to recoup their cost of research, development, and testing for certification by the FDA. Of course costs of advertising also play a huge role. There really would be little point to making an inferior product to sell at a lower price in other countries.

Counterpunch has the article Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works.

The primary aim of official propaganda is to generate an “official narrative” that can be mindlessly repeated by the ruling classes and those who support and identify with them. This official narrative does not have to make sense, or to stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. Its factualness is not the point. The point is to draw a Maginot line, a defensive ideological boundary, between “the truth” as defined by the ruling classes and any other “truth” that contradicts their narrative.

Come to think of it, this technique is so powerful that both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have fallen to this power. At least Bernie Sanders seems to still be figting it although he had completely succumbed during the general election. The evidence I see is the support Warren and Sanders gave to Clinton, even though they couldn’t possibly have believed the supportive things they said about Clinton. If you think they really believed what they said about Clinton, then everything Bernie Sanders said about Clinton in the primary season and everything that Warren had said and written about Clinton before her endorsement of Clinton were lies. If you know that one of the two sets narratives had to be lies, how do you know which one to believe? One way to figure it out is to look at which narrative comports with the facts about Clinton that you have learned over the years independently of what Sanders or Warren have said.

Two examples should suffice to give you the idea of what I mean. I don’t think there is any doubt that Bill Clinton pressed the case for bank deregulation and NAFTA against the will of the majority of the Democrats in Congress at the time. He enlisted Republican help to get these two things passed. These two things match what Warren and Sanders have been saying for years. These two things directly contradict what Warren and Sanders said about Clinton after Clinton became the official nominee.

Naked Capitalism has the article Gaius Publius: Who’s Blackmailing the President & Why Aren’t Democrats Upset About It?

As I said above, there only three elements to “get” to get this story. First, there’s the blackmail element. According to the 35-page dossier, Russia (supposedly) prepared blackmail material on Trump but isn’t using it.

But it’s clear that American intelligence services certainly are using it, or using the threat of using it, and doing so very publicly

This article and the links that are in it get to the seriousness of what is going on here. It may all unfold before the inauguration on Friday. This is going to be an interesting week.