Aggregated News & Opinion
Recent posts in bigger type —>
Recent posts in bigger type —>
Byzantine health plans. Impoverishing deductibles. Exorbitant drug costs. Soul-crushing surprises lurking in the fine print....
The 2017 US out-of-control per capita health care spending was $5322 more per person than in France, the highest rated system based on patient outcomes. The US wastes $1.8 Trillion per year on health care spending compared to the average 2017 total per capita costs of comparable yet profit-controlled advanced countries.
Let's end price gouging and adopt fair profit-controls too.
Let's end price gouging and adopt fair profit-controls too.
DB Business channel | YouTube | 21.09.27
Major figures privately admit summit will fail to result in pledges that could limit global heating to 1.5C
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent | The Guardian | 21.09.27
Coronavirus: Covid live news: Japan to lift state of emergency at end of September; two thirds of UK fully vaccinated
Japan to lift Covid state of emergency in all regions at the end of September; UK figures show 44.7 million second jabs have been delivered
Tom Ambrose (now); Harriet Grant and Helen Sullivan (earlier) | The Guardian | 21.09.27
Stupidity! The Entire United States Is Now the Reichstag Building [Republicans imitate futuristic stupid Americans in the movie: "Idiocracy"]
The Republicans smell blood in the water. Is it possible to overstate how dangerous this situation has become?
ADOLPH REED JR. | Common Dreams | 21.09.26
"Is there an acceptable pediatric body count?" asked a top pediatrician in New Orleans this week. "I think not."
JULIA CONLEY | Common Dreams | 21.09.25
US politics live | : US politics CDC experts advise third dose of Pfizer Covid vaccine for over-65s and high risk Americans - as it happened
- Action comes after FDA panel also approved the booster for those groups
- Eight Democrats and one Republican oppose bill, and two Democrats vote ‘present’
- Democrats reach agreement on framework to pay for reconciliation bill
- House panel holds hearing on ‘surge in air rage’
- Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by email
Maanvi Singh (now) and Joan E Greve (earlier) | The Guardian | 21.09.24
Environmental activism: ‘Low-hanging fruit’: Insulate Britain’s message makes sense, say experts [Too many houses are under-insulated, which can be fixed cheaply!]
While its tactics are controversial, there is ‘widespread agreement’ with the group’s demands
Matthew Taylor | The Guardian | 21.09.24
Carbon capture and storage (CCS): Climate crisis: do we need millions of machines sucking CO2 from the air?
From turning CO2 into rock to capturing the breath of office workers, a growing number of companies think the answer is yes
Damian Carrington Environment editor | The Guardian | 21.09.24
Many workers feel stonewalled by elected officials and scapegoated for the high US Covid death toll
Abdullah Shihipar | The Guardian | 21.09.23
Refusal to recognise vaccines given across Latin America, Africa and south Asia has been denounced as ‘discriminatory’
Tom Phillips, Flávia Milhorance in Rio de Janeiro, Emmanuel Akinwotu, and Jon Henley in Paris | The Guardian | 21.09.23
London: Climate crisis: fifth of London schools now susceptible to flooding [Other coastal city mayors are either clueless or scared-stiff by such an enormous threat.]
Sadiq Khan to warn time is running out to tackle emergency as he puts pressure on UK government to act
Aubrey Allegretti Political correspondent | The Guardian | 21.09.23
Level for the most damaging tiny particles is halved, reflecting new evidence of deadly harm
Damian Carrington Environment editor | The Guardian | 21.09.23
In low-income countries fewer than 2% of the population has received a shot
David Smith in Washington | The Guardian | 21.09.22
Opinion | Gardens: Do you have a glossy green front lawn? What is this, the 1950s? [The misuses of precious fresh water are worse than stupid.]
Green lawns are terrible for the environment. They’re also embarrassingly old-fashioned and out of style
Tayo Bero | The Guardian | 21.09.22
Opinion | Media business: Rupert Murdoch’s launch of talkTV is about opportunism as much as ideology [Warped news is killing the (figuratively) human insects]
Piers Morgan will be presenting a nightly talkshow in this new venture aimed at outflanking the ailing GB News
Emily Bell is director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism | The Guardian | 21.09.21
US news: Dangerous transmissions: anti-vax radio shows reach millions in US while stars die of Covid [Right-wing media doesn't care about truth or morality, they exemplify the worst kind of capitalism.]
Media watchdogs suggest that some basic level of responsibility to the public should be required to keep a broadcast license
Adam Gabbatt | The Guardian | 21.09.21
Howling at bad journalism!
BOB SOMERBY in Baltimore | The DailyHowler | DAILY
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 The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, arrives at the US Capitol on Monday. Moderate and progressive Democrats are split over the size of Joe Biden’s social spending package. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images US domestic policy: Republicans block measure to fund US government beyond Thursday [When was the last time Republicans actually did something good?] Democrats have just three days to find alternative deal and are also facing a potential default Reuters in Washington | The Guardian | 21.09.28
 Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, can expect hostile questions from Republicans in the Senate. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP US Congress: Top US general to face heated questions in Congress after Woodward revelations [Trump was so obviously unfit to be President, it was essential to surround him with ‘handlers’.] Mark Milley poised for tense cross-examination after book said he took steps to prevent Trump from starting a war Julian Borger in Washington | The Guardian | 21.09.28
 Barack Obama points to a rendering of his presidential library, in Chicago, where ground will be broken this week. Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP Former president says billionaires should ‘pay a little bit more in taxes’ to fund healthcare, childcare and the climate crisis fight Martin Pengelly in New York | The Guardian | 21.09.28
Sexual harassment: Anita Hill on sexual harassment and survival: ‘You have to think: what is my life for?’ [NYT: Joe Biden Expresses Regret to Anita Hill, but She Says ‘I’m Sorry’ Is Not Enough] Before Christine Blasey Ford and Monica Lewinsky, there was Anita Hill, shamed for exposing the actions of a powerful man. She explains how she withstood the tumult  Anita Hill testifying in 1991. Photograph: Peter Heimsath/Rex/Shutterstock by Nesrine Malik | The Guardian | 21.09.28
Working-class people – even Trump voters – understand the Build Back Better plan will benefit them Zack Harold | The Guardian | 21.09.28
 Sonya Mitchell’s 23-year-old son, Daimon ‘DaDa’ Ferguson, was killed in a drive-by shooting on 3 September 2020. Photograph: Marissa Leshnov/Marissa Leshnov for The Guardian Guns and lies | Gun crime: Inside the San Francisco Bay Area’s pandemic murder surge: ‘No one knows this pain but us’ [When violent crime is ‘normal’, life is hell.] Guardian analysis reveals region-wide increase in violent deaths, but Black and Latino residents make up majority of victims Abené Clayton in Los Angeles with graphics by Alvin Chang | The Guardian | 21.09.28
Fight For Life: Despite Our Despair, There's a Reality Worth Fighting For Those who are enduring injustice, exploitation, and oppression—whether people, animals, or ecosystems—need us to believe that wrongs can be righted and to take action accordingly.  Students in New York demonstrating on the 20th September Climate Strike, part of a worldwide day of climate strikes on 20th September 2019. (Photo: Barbara Alper/Getty Images) ZOE WEIL | Common Dreams | 21.09.28
| Climate crisis: ‘Blah, blah, blah’: Greta Thunberg lambasts leaders over climate crisis [1:32 video; Do not go gentle into that last of good life! (Paraphrasing Dylan Thomas)] Exclusive: Activist says there are many fine words but the science does not lie – CO2 emissions are still rising 'All we hear is blah blah blah': Greta Thunberg takes aim at climate platitudes ....“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. “This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”.... Damian Carrington Environment editor | The Guardian | 21.09.28
Opinion | Energy efficiency: Britain’s leaky homes make the energy crisis worse. Why have governments not fixed them? [A cheap way to save money!] Our housing stock needs better insulation and low-carbon heating, or we’ll continue to suffer these shocks  A thermal image showing heat loss from a badly insulated house. Photograph: Home Heat Helpline/PA Over the past few days the country has been thrown into panic, as soaring gas prices threaten to plunge hundreds of thousands more households into fuel poverty, joining the 2.5 million already there. For others, uncomfortably tight budgets will be further squeezed. Any country reliant on the worldwide gas market faces the risk of perennial price shocks. But let’s be clear: the extent of this crisis was not inevitable. It is, in significant part, the result of a decade of government failure to insulate us from the disastrous downsides of fossil-fuel dependency....Max Wakefield | The Guardian | 21.09.28
Coronavirus: Coronavirus live: 10% of England’s secondary school pupils have long Covid symptoms; record Russia deaths  Over a tenth of children in secondary schools in England have long Covid symptoms. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images One in 10 secondary school pupils in England and third of staff have long Covid symptoms; official Russian tally reports 852 fatalities in 24 hours Tom Ambrose (now); Harriet Grant and Helen Sullivan (earlier) | The Guardian | 21.09.28
"We're confident that inclusion of comprehensive drug pricing reforms in the reconciliation package will lower prices, save lives, and ensure continued development of innovative new drugs."  Medical professionals, students, ACTUP New York, and their supporters protested outside Pfizer's global headquarters in New York City on March 2, 2019. (Photo: Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images) JESSICA CORBETT | Common Dreams | 21.09.28
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Low vaccine rates may be the predictable outcome subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s, health researchers say Reuters in New York | The Guardian | 21.09.27
Reuters in New York | The Guardian | 21.09.27
America's water crisis | US news: Almost half a million US households lack indoor plumbing: ‘The conditions are inhumane’ Renters and people of color are most likely to be living without water or flushing toilets in some of America’s wealthiest cities, new research shows Nina Lakhani in New York and Maanvi Singh in San Francisco | The Guardian | 21.09.27
Texas: Fancy hunting a kangaroo? Or a zebra? In Texas, you can pay to play [It's what the Trumps’ call sport: it’s murdering beautiful animals that are raised like pets with high-powered scoped-rifles from a great distance...for fun.] In ‘canned’ hunts, captive animals are shot for meat and trophies but ranchers say they need to make money and exotic animals offer a steady revenue by Alexandra Villarreal | The Guardian | 21.09.27
Biden administration: Pelosi: Biden spending plan, infrastructure deal and funding ‘must pass’ next week
Guardian staff and agencies | The Guardian | 21.09.26
Opinion | Biden administration: Why corporate social responsibility is BS [Note: News media are corporations, too. Consider Newsmax, etc....] While big corporations tell Americans how virtuous they are, they lobby up a storm against Biden’s social policy bill Robert Reich | The Guardian | 21.09.26
Slumping approval ratings, political deadlock at home and blunders on foreign policy leave the White House facing its moment of truth Simon Tisdall | The Guardian | 21.09.26
Opinion | US politics: Two disbarred lawyers sued a Texas doctor who performed an abortion. Flustered ‘pro-lifers’ are backpedaling [Crazy people run some state governments...] Anti-choice groups are embarrassed that their draconian law is being enforced the way it was designed Moira Donegan | The Guardian | 21.09.26
Opinion | Biden administration: Why corporate social responsibility is BS [Note: News media are corporations, too. Consider Newsmax, etc....] While big corporations tell Americans how virtuous they are, they lobby up a storm against Biden’s social policy bill Robert Reich | The Guardian | 21.09.26
Kill the Filibuster: To Avert Debt Ceiling Calamity, Democrats Urged to Finally Kill the Filibuster "The solution is to blow up the filibuster at least for debt limit votes, just as Mitch blew it up to pack the Supreme Court for his big donors." JAKE JOHNSON | Common Dreams | 21.09.25
The Week in Patriarchy | Feminism: Laugh at the outrage over ‘sexy seahorses’ – but there’s nothing funny about conservatives trying to rewrite history The rightwing playbook: outrage, leading to the passage of deliberately vague laws and advocacy groups diligently weaponizing those laws Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian | 21.09.25
| German federal election 2021: Germany election: SPD wins narrow victory as Merkel era ends in near-deadlock [1:22 video; It’s excellent for the Greens to now have heightened policy influence!] Social Democrats edge out Christian Democrats, according to preliminary results, but tight finish leaves third-placed Green party as kingmaker Nina Lakhani in New York and Maanvi Singh in San Francisco | The Guardian | 21.09.27
Israel: Five Palestinians shot dead in gun battles with Israeli troops in West Bank [Palestinians need non-militant peacetime leadership to leverage their common semitic heritage with Jews to win a lasting peace!] Two Israeli soldiers were also seriously wounded after violence erupted when troops tried to arrest suspected Hamas militants Associated Press | The Guardian | 21.09.27
South Korea: South Korean president suggests ban on eating dog meat [We need dogs as loving friends, instead!] Moon Jae-in, a dog-lover, says ‘time has come’ for traditional practice to end Agence France-Presse in Seoul | The Guardian | 21.09.27
Gabby Petito: The death of Gabby Petito draws attention to a form of gendered violence [...] that has long been hiding in plain sight [Femicide is a world-wide threat to women and girls, with the highest known incidence in America.] The death of Gabby Petito draws attention to a form of widespread gendered violence in the US that has long been hiding in plain sight Rose Hackman | The Guardian | 21.09.26
Opinion | Climate change: The climate crisis has made the idea of a better future impossible to imagine Despite all the analogies for this possibly terminal emergency, it is unlike anything that has come before Ian Jack | The Guardian | 21.09.25
Opinion | United Nations: As world leaders gather at the UN, the violation of Palestinian rights must be on the agenda [Israel’s Jews created a second “Warsaw Ghetto,” one that has harshly punished Palestinians for seventy years! This then resulted in militant Palestinian leadership that has made matters even worse.] The UN played a crucial role in defeating South African apartheid – it is time to investigate Israel’s unequal regime Hanan Ashrawi and Lakhdar Brahimi | The Guardian | 21.09.25
President tells UN general assembly that US will become the world’s leading provider of climate finance Oliver Milman in New York | The Guardian | 21.09.22
Far-right president peddled unproven Covid remedies and made baseless claims about Brazilian politics and the environment Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro | The Guardian | 21.09.22
China: ‘Big line in the sand’: China promises no new coal-fired power projects abroad [All together now, let's save our beautiful world!] Experts welcome Xi Jinping’s announcement at UN as hugely influential, but concerns remain over domestic emissions Helen Sullivan and agencies | The Guardian | 21.09.22
The outspoken: Zahra Joya: the Afghan reporter who fled the Taliban – and kept telling the truth about women As a child in Afghanistan, she pretended to be a boy in order to get an education, before starting her own women’s news agency. Now living in Britain, her fight continues by Annie Kelly | The Guardian | 21.09.22
| Project Syndicate economists | Supply chain crisis: The global supply chain crisis could fuel a severe dose of stagflation Economic observers should heed the warnings now – rising prices and slowing growth are a very real threat Nouriel Roubini | The Guardian | 21.09.22
Afghanistan: ‘Necessary for security’: veteran Taliban enforcer says amputations will resume [Such barbaric Islam is NOT religion!] Nooruddin Turabi, in charge of Afghan prisons, says executions and removal of hands will restart, but possibly not in public Peter Beaumont | The Guardian | 21.09.24
Alexander Litvinenko: Russia responsible for Alexander Litvinenko death, European court rules [Might Putin be charged for ordering the murder?] ECHR also finds ex-KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out assassination
Haroon Siddique and Andrew Roth | The Guardian | 21.09.21
Virtual Nations [An editorial promoting an anti-despot/fascist ideal] Instead of NATION-STATE-POLITICIANS essentially owning and controlling people (and their descendants ad infinitum) in "their" Nation State, wouldn't it be better if adults world-wide could contract with UN-certified professional agencies to perform nation-level fiduciary functions (certifications being updated at least quarterly).
— State, City and county governments would continue unchanged —
Marc Cherbonnier | The Baltimore Chronicle | Ref.
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