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With the recent developments in Venezuela, we’ll discuss “what should US policy be with regard to Venezuela?”

• Are we being appropriately supportive of Guido?
• Should we have recognized him as interim President?
• Should we do more? Less?
• How should Venezuela situation affect our relations with Russia and Cuba?
• What patterns can we discern amongst countries supporting Madura? Guido?

Now that Robert Mueller’s work is complete(?) and his report issued, we’ll discuss the report’s contents and implications:

• What does the report actually say vs. what the pundits predicted that it would (or say it does)?
• What (specifically) should be done to protect our elections from Russian (or other external) influence?
• And, seemingly of far more interest to the talking heads, what are the implications for the Trump presidency?
  • Has Mueller provided convincing evidence that the President has committed one or more crimes?
  • Is impeachment necessary, appropriate or just a political stunt?
  • Put another way, if you were a US Senator, would you vote to convict based solely on the evidence in the Mueller report? Would you apply a different standard than for a criminal jury trial (other than the unanimity requirement for the latter)?

If you aren’t super-facile with Google (or your favorite alternative search engine), here’s a link to the full Mueller Report (be aware, it’s a pretty big file (~140MB) because of the way it was produced—but this is the new, searchable version direct from the US Department of Justice).

During our “Hancock County Healthcare” discussion today, John Ronan mentioned the incredibly anemic margins for Maine Hospitals—with over half of the hospitals in our state losing money (after fundraising, donations, etc.).

Here is a link to a Maine Hospital Association document that shows the margin trends from 2011 to 2016 (on page 17 of the pdf document). There’s some other good stuff (at least I think so) elsewhere in that document.