Health Care

The Ostrich Policy: Trump ready to Kill Hundreds of Thousands to avoid bad Coronavirus Optics for Election

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump and Pence on Monday were busy trying to spread the Big Lie that the only reason the US coronavirus numbers are spiking is increased testing. Trump is embarrassed because our situation is so dire, and it is in some large part his fault. More and more of it will […]

Democratic Socialism

What Corporations Fear: Best Recovery from Covid-19 Depression is Universal Income and Federal School Funding

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – I am betting that before November 2020 Congress will pass and the President will sign another major relief package. More interesting will be the debate on the measure. That debate already says a lot about the underlying anxieties that grip both parties and their aspirations for the […]

Constitution

Could America’s Covid and Race Crises Weaken the Union the way Chernobyl Broke up the USSR?

Matthew Lenoe

Rochester, NY (Special to Informed Comment) – An unforeseen health disaster with rapidly propagating domestic and international consequences strikes a superpower already wallowing in heavy seas. Overwhelmed by the surge, the ship of state floods, and begins to break up. The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in April 1986, and the subsequent disintegration of the USSR […]

Donald Trump

OK, Boomer: The Trump Administration’s Generational Lies Deepen America’s Fissures

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – These days, teaching graduating college seniors has me, as the Brits would say in the London Underground, “minding the gap.” In my case, however, it’s not the gap between the platform and the train I’m thinking of, but a couple of others: those between U.S. citizens and our government, as well […]

Epidemics

Ever Spiralling Inequality in America, not Trump, Caused our Crisis; but He’s making it Worse

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Class of 2020, wherever you are, I had planned to address you on this graduation day. But how can I? Yes, I know that former President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Tom Hanks all took part in elaborate online graduation ceremonies, offering commentary, advice, and encouragement in our now campus-less world, but […]

African-Americans

Roots of Anger: Top 3 Reasons African-Americans have Lost Most in the Coronavirus Depression

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even before the nation-wide demonstrations that have racked the nation and led to arrests in 17 cities, over the wrongful death at the hands of a Minneapolis policeman of George Floyd, the situation of African-Americans in this country was cratering because of the pandemic and its associated economic Depression. Some […]

Authoritarianism

How Middle East Governments are using Covid-19 as a Pretext to Crush Human Rights

Global Voices

By Saoussen Ben Cheikh | – (Globalvoices.org) – In response to COVID-19, governments around the world have declared states of emergency, allowing them to take exceptional measures to contain the pandemic. Liberal democracies from the United States, Canada to European countries, Malaysia and South Africa imposed emergency measures that restricted mobility under lockdowns. Likewise, in […]

Epidemics

Amid Yemen Coronavirus Outbreak, Aden Buries its dead while Houthis Bury their Heads

Brian Whitaker

( Al-Bab.com) – There used to be about ten burials a day in the cemeteries of Yemen’s second city, Aden, but since Covid-19 arrived the number has risen to around 80 a day. Although many of these deaths have not been properly investigated, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which runs the city’s only dedicated Covid-19 treatment […]