Politics
We have seen the mainstream media characterize various stories about riots and Black-White police interactions in a very polarizing fashion. Because of these stories, it seems that many people believe that 1/2 of the country are virulent racists and the other half are not. Is it a surprise then that we would see more of the same media manipulation in this latest riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. What can we learn about this story, and how can we move forward to racial healing instead of race war?
After Donald Trump made an alarming comment about meeting North Korea’s with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” should they make any more “threats” to the U.S., some are wondering whether the U.S. president might be too quick to jump into a nuclear confrontation. Russell Brand provides his analysis.
The newly released plan leaves massive and widely condemned Medicaid cuts intact while adding a new amendment—put forth by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)—that would allow insurers to offer cheap “bare-bones” plans which would wipe out a range of protections for all patients and specifically harm those with preexisting conditions. “The new Trumpcare bill is awful by design. The tool we have to fight it is simple: public pressure on senators.” —Ezra Levin, Indivisible
Sanders said that “we’re in a pivotal moment of American history… The trend toward having a handful of billionaire families with unlimited resources controlling our political process will only get worse. The trend toward a handful of conglomerates owning and controlling our economy will only get worse. And what our job is, is to create a vibrant democracy where one person, one vote is what dominates the political system, not billionaires buying the election.”
The newly released plan leaves massive and widely condemned Medicaid cuts intact while adding a new amendment—put forth by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)—that would allow insurers to offer cheap “bare-bones” plans which would wipe out a range of protections for all patients and specifically harm those with preexisting conditions. “The new Trumpcare bill is awful by design. The tool we have to fight it is simple: public pressure on senators.” —Ezra Levin, Indivisible
The information saying that Obamacare is doing well comes from a report that Trump himself has cited on several occasions. When will he bother to report on the good news that contradicts the “death spiral” scare tactics of himself and his fellow Republicans?
Environmental groups and climate activists celebrated the G20 world leaders’ reaffirmation of their commitment to fighting climate change and hailed the communique as a step in the right direction. “Donald Trump is learning the hard way that he cannot thwart the entire world on climate change and expect to continue with business as usual,” added Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.
California will add glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s blockbuster herbicide RoundUp, to its list of chemicals known to cause cancer.
We need to embrace our radical history to attack the evils of our own time… As the journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd put it just over a century ago: “The price of liberty is something more than eternal vigilance. There must also be eternal advance. We can save the rights we have inherited from our fathers only by winning new ones to bequeath our children.”
Mitch McConnell’s move to delay the Trumpcare vote is viewed by many as a testament to the strength of the bill’s critics and the tenacity of its opponents. The delay was widely seen as a stunning political defeat for McConnell and a rebuke to a bill that numerous lawmakers, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, had referred to as a piece of “garbage” which belonged in the trash.
The broken promise on Medicare is in danger of slipping by beneath the radar. Only days after the election, Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he saw an opportunity to realize his decades-long dream of destroying Medicare. He said that he planned to enact legislation as soon as possible that would end Medicare’s guaranteed benefit and replace it with voucher coupons. Ryan justified this horrible plan — destined to leave the nation’s seniors without medical care after a lifetime of work — by claiming “because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The Affordable Care Act improved Medicare’s long-term finances, by requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay somewhat more. Trumpcare repeals that increased funding.
“The Senate’s health care legislation is an especially cruel and destructive transfer of wealth to the wealthiest American’s at the expense of kids, low-income Americans, the elderly, those with disabilities, and the nearly 23 million Americans who could lose their coverage as a result of health care repeal efforts,” said MoveOn.
The CIA-sanctioned program [MK ULTRA] ran from the 1950s until the mid-1970s, though many believe that aspects of the program still exist today. The experiments were intended to identify drugs as well as procedures to be used in interrogations and torture in order to weaken victims and force confessions out of them through the use of mind control. Though the TV show lightly touched on the severe mental abuse participants endured, it completely left out the physical and sexual abuse involved as well as the other gruesome details of the experiments.
The US already does not have a healthy health care system because a powerful minority will not allow it. The US health care system is a dysfunctional nexus of arrangements imposed on the rest of us by ideologues and those who profit from our health care system’s dysfunction.
The contents of the Seneate Trumpcare Plan released online have already sparked a flood of alarmed criticism, vows of opposition, and protests. If enacted, it would increase, by tens of millions, the number of people without insurance.
