Aggregated News & Opinion
Recent posts in bigger type —>
Recent posts in bigger type —>
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 stop price gouging and adopt fair profit-controls like the REAL advanced countries do.
Rapidly rising levels of atmospheric methane are "very bad news for humanity and the planet," warned one observer.
JAKE JOHNSON | Common Dreams | 22.02.09
Seascape: the state of our oceans | Plastics: Cargo ship disasters are ‘oil spills of our time’ because of health risk from plastic
Sri Lankan beaches buried in pellets only ‘tip of the iceberg’ of environmental harm after analysis of nurdles from burning ship
Karen McVeigh | The Guardian | 22.02.09
Seascape: the state of our oceans | Marine life: World leaders descend on France for ocean summit as Macron puts spotlight on seas
As One Ocean event in Brest aims to deliver ‘blue diplomacy’ in areas from pollution to overfishing, activists warn against ‘bluewashing’
Jon Henley | The Guardian | 22.02.08
WWF report says reduction must be made in the next 10 years to tackle climate crisis and nature loss
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent | The Guardian | 22.02.08
Attempts to study the deteriorating Florida-sized glacier that could raise sea levels by 2ft if it breaks off are being frustrated
Associated Press | The Guardian | 22.02.08
Opinion | Pollution: This lawyer should be world-famous for his battle with Chevron – but he’s in jail
Chevron is accused of polluting the Amazon for 26 years. The only people who’ve paid the price are a human rights lawyer and those whose land was poisoned
Erin Brockovich | The Guardian | 22.02.08
End highest-profit healthcare! The Movement Grows: Jayapal Heralds Record 120 Medicare for All Co-Sponsors
The Washington Democrat welcomed the latest development in the "fight to ensure healthcare as a human right." [Ruthlessly immoral capitalism must change or die!]
ANDREA GERMANOS | Common Dreams | 22.02.07
Chemical pollution: It's Time to Overhaul the Chemical Industry
The industry essentially has had a free pass to continue business as usual, despite its role in the climate crisis and other environmental harms. [Effects of chemical pollution are often hideous and long-term.]
DARYA MINOVI | Common Dreams | 22.02.07
Lockdown revolutionised women’s access to home treatment – and strengthened the anti-abortion backlash
by Sarah Hurtes and Daniel Boffey | The Guardian | 22.02.07
Coronavirus live | Coronavirus: Covid live news: Canadian capital declares state of emergency over protests; Vietnam reopens schools after year-long closure
Residents furious as protesters opposed to Covid-19 restrictions paralyse Ottawa; more than 17 million Vietnamese students due to return to school
Tobi Thomas (now); Miranda Bryant and Helen Livingstone (earlier) | The Guardian | 22.02.07
Two celebrity deaths this week prompt petition to the president calling for tougher punishments for those who post abuse online [Social/gossip media can kill!]
Justin McCurry in Tokyo | The Guardian | 22.02.09
Opinion | Social media: The whole world should be worried by the ‘siege of Ottawa’. This is about much more than a few anti-vaxx truckers
How did this ‘grassroots’ rebellion paralyse the Canadian capital? With funding from the far right and a boost from Facebook misinformation [Social media has a morality problem!]
Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian | 22.02.09
The Week in Patriarchy | Rudy Giuliani: Lied and need your reputation laundered? Just go on a reality TV show
Rewarding people like Rudy Giuliani with TV appearances sends a message that lying and cheating is fine – and gives them carte blanche [Media has a morality problem!]
Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian | 22.02.07
Howling at bad journalism!
BOB SOMERBY in Baltimore | The DailyHowler | DAILY
| Arts & Education Events: |
| Civic Events: |
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 annually).
— State, City and county governments would continue unchanged —
Marc Cherbonnier | The Baltimore Chronicle | Ref.
|
Maintaining higher donation-bribes! GOP Blocks Sanders Effort to Force Vote on Slashing Drug Prices "How many people need to die, how many people need to get unnecessarily sicker, before Congress is prepared to take on the greed of the prescription drug industry?" asked Sen. Bernie Sanders.  Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) talks with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on June 8, 2021. (Photo: Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images) Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho blocked Sen. Bernie Sanders' attempt Wednesday to force a vote on legislation that would slash prescription drug prices, thwarting the Vermont senator's effort to fast-track the new bill as the pharmaceutical industry rushes to hike costs in the new year.
"A lifesaving prescription drug does not mean anything if you cannot afford to buy that drug." Sanders, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, requested unanimous consent to proceed to debate and a vote on the Cutting Medicare Prescription Drug Prices in Half Act, a measure he introduced earlier Wednesday alongside Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). If passed, the bill would bring the prices of drugs covered by Medicare into line with what the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or the Federal Supply Schedule pay for the same medications. According to a 2017 Government Accountability Office study, the VA "paid an average of 54% less per unit than Medicare" for a sample of hundreds of brand-name and generic drugs. But Crapo—a major recipient of pharmaceutical and insurance industry donations—objected to Sanders' request to advance the legislation, claiming it would usher in "more bureaucracy."... JAKE JOHNSON | Common Dreams | 22.02.10
Former Senator David Perdue, now running for Georgia governor, repeats false election fraud claims on campaign trail [Immorality, cheating, and being improper is the only practical Republican way to win!]  David Perdue has told supporters he would create a “law enforcement division” to ensure only legal votes are counted. Photograph: John Bazemore/AP Sergio Olmos | The Guardian | 22.02.10
 Donald Trump and Boris Johnson: ‘Johnson has always been a keen observer of American political trends.’ Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters The disgraceful smear against Keir Starmer has strong echoes of the former president’s attacks on Hillary Clinton Jon Allsop | The Guardian | 22.02.10
Honduras: UN rapporteur ‘appalled’ by convictions for Honduran environmentalists who opposed open-pit mine Legal and human rights experts condemn decision to find six activists guilty of crimes against mining company  A family washes clothes in the waters of the Guapinol river on the outskirts of Tocoa, Colón department. Photograph: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images Nina Lakhani | The Guardian | 22.02.10
After he was stabbed and lay dying on a train, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche had a message I will never forget [A beautiful spiritual belief stronger than just a message...]  ‘When I first heard them, his words stopped me in my tracks, and they have stayed with me since.’ Photograph: Natalie Behring/Getty Images It was 26 May 2017 on the Portland MAX light rail service when a white supremacist named Jeremy Christian began threatening two teenage girls; one of the girls was black, the other in hijab. Three other men, all strangers on the same train, stood up to Christian, defending and ultimately saving the girls. Christian attacked the three men with a knife, killing 53-year-old Ricky John Best and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and injuring Micah David-Cole Fletcher.As Taliesin was bleeding, another passenger, a woman named Rachel Macy, knelt with him, comforting him and staunching his wounds. Taliesin knew he was dying. “Tell everyone on this train I love them”, he said to Macy in his final moments.... Maeve Higgins | The Guardian | 22.02.10
|
 Emma Thompson: ‘I am grateful I can still get up a hill.’ Photograph: Yui Mok/AFP/Getty Images Living in a woman's body | Family: Emma Thompson on living in a woman’s body: my daughter thrums with life, my mother is frail – and I’m balanced between When three generations of my family were together, I realised how, wordlessly, we recalibrate each other I found myself, during our strange, second Covid Christmas, sandwiched between my 22-year-old daughter and my 89-year-old mother. This year, more than ever, the umbilical connection between us tugged at me as I, Janus-in-waiting, observed, monitored and enjoyed the miraculous luxury of three generations together....Emma Thompson | The Guardian | 22.02.10
 ‘My body is not a static entity but a transforming thing, multitudinous in its possibilities’ … Arifa Akbar. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian Living in a woman's body | Parents and parenting: Living in a woman’s body: it’s a potent myth that all women want children – but I have experienced other wonders The lie that all women have a yearning to be a mother can feel like biological gaslighting. I’ve had a different kind of life – and it is meaningful, rewarding, joyous ....Until that moment, I had not asked myself the question. I thought it was no longer something that had to be asked, or answered; this was the 00s, not the 50s. Women no longer ran their lives by the internalised tick-list of husband, house and baby. But in the following decade, the world began to look and sound as if it was full of timeless, retrograde anxieties and paranoias over fertility windows and body clocks.The myth of motherhood runs deep, and the lie that, secretly, all women want children is still so potent that it felt like biological gaslighting. Why did I not feel this elemental hunger? Was there something wrong with me? And finally, what was wrong with me?... Arifa Akbar | The Guardian | 22.02.10
Afghanistan: ‘We have never given up’: how Afghan women are demanding their education under the Taliban Since recapturing Afghanistan, the Taliban have largely if inconsistently closed down girls’ schooling – but have found a new generation ready to fight for the right to study [11:29 video reveals both the damage to and the hope for these young women.]  A class in computer science for 10th- to 12th-grade students at Ashna private school in Kandahar. Even before the Taliban took power in mid-August, classes were divided by gender from when children approach puberty. Photograph: Nanna Muus Steffensen Emma Graham-Harrison in Qalat | The Guardian | 22.02.10
 A detention camp for women and children in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria. NGO Reprieve found most British women detained in camps are victims of trafficking. Photograph: Ivor Prickett/New York Times/Redux/eyevine Rights and freedom | Islamic State: British women and children detained in Syria failed by UK government, inquiry finds Parliamentary report finds ‘compelling evidence’ of trafficking and highlights missed opportunities to protect vulnerable people later stripped of citizenship Thaslima Begum | The Guardian | 22.02.10
Afghanistan: ‘We have never given up’: how Afghan women are demanding their education under the Taliban Since recapturing Afghanistan, the Taliban have largely if inconsistently closed down girls’ schooling – but have found a new generation ready to fight for the right to study [Taliban-like cultural oppression is found in the more backward regions of America, too. Even among truck drivers...]  Max Nibert, a Huntington high school senior, holds signs reading ‘My rights are non-negotiable.’ Photograph: Leah M Willingham/AP Associated Press | The Guardian | 22.02.10
 Covid restrictions protesters in France on Wednesday. Photograph: SYSPEO/Sipa/Rex/
Shutterstock Protesters have set out from southern France inspired by demonstrators in Canada
[Our exhausted hive-mind has changed: Societies are shifting from pandemic to endemic acceptance.] Jon Henley in Paris | The Guardian | 22.02.10
|
| Critics say this move will upend the Biden administration’s goal to get to net zero emissions by 2050 as a means to tackle climate crisis [An ignorant plan!] Oliver Milman | The Guardian | 22.02.09
Leaked documents show that about 18 out of 87 applicants, or 21%, to Patriot Front were currently or formerly affiliated with military Maya Yang | The Guardian | 22.02.09
US Capitol attack: Mitch McConnell rebukes RNC for censuring party members investigating ‘violent insurrection’ The Republican National Committee chastised Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, irking the Senate minority leader Joan E Greve and agencies | The Guardian | 22.02.09
Black business ownership is up more than 30% on pre-pandemic levels, with Black women making up a fastest growing group [Wonderful!] Gloria Oladipo | The Guardian | 22.02.09
Medicare for All On What Just Happened to Medicare for All in California—and the Organizing We Need to Win Why hasn't the overwhelming popularity of Medicare for All—85% of Democrats, 66% of independents and 52% (!) of GOP support it—translated into legislative majorities? MICHAEL LIGHTY, a founding Fellow of the Sanders Institute, and worked for 25 years at California Nurses Association/NNU. | Common Dreams | 22.02.08
Climate crimes | Alec (American Legislative Exchange Council): Rightwing lobby group Alec driving laws to blacklist companies that boycott the oil industry The American Legislative Exchange Council has drafted legislation modelled on efforts to block divestment from Israel [Promoting the worst government that money can buy!] Chris McGreal | The Guardian | 22.02.08
|
Analysis: The government’s stance on coalmines, oilfields, transport and green investment is causing increasing worry Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent | The Guardian | 22.02.09
Prime minister follows Donald Trump playbook by tacitly endorsing wild conspiracy theory to score points Dan Sabbagh | The Guardian | 22.02.09
Ottawa’s occupation was a result of unrivaled coordination between anti-vax and anti-government organizations [A Trumpian idiocracy] Justin Ling in Montreal | The Guardian | 22.02.08
Cutting gas supply to Europe would damage Russia’s reputation and cause EU to shift away, says head of IEA Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent | The Guardian | 22.02.08
Lawyers bringing first complaint to Africa’s top rights body over conflict in country say violations ‘could amount to war crimes’ [Stop barbarism!] Lizzy Davies | The Guardian | 22.02.09
| It has been well documented for decades that Amazon's strategy for retail dominance rests on two tactics: avoiding taxes and using the savings to finance a slow strangulation of its retail competition. MATTHEW GARDNER/Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy | Common Dreams | 22.02.08
Economics viewpoint | World Bank: The US economic war on Afghanistan amounts to a humanitarian crime Washington and the west are inflicting brutal collective punishment on an already destitute people by freezing assets and aid Larry Elliott | The Guardian | 22.02.07
Justices put on hold a lower court ruling that state must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections [Keeping descendants of slaves in their place!] Sam Levine and agencies | The Guardian | 22.02.08
Govern insider trading! 'Keep Pushing': Momentum Grows Behind Effort to Ban Stock Trading "It's time for Congress to act and ban members from trading stocks while they're in office." [Is this realistically possible with island nation money laundering, etc.?] JAKE JOHNSON | Common Dreams | 22.02.07
Authorities say [she] died from an accidental overdose, but her family believes this could be another sad example of the dangers women face from men on dating apps [Meet new friends through TRUE friends!] Nancy Jo Sales | The Guardian | 22.02.07
|