Health

Where’s the Second Relief Act? The US Safety Net is working, but there are Capitalists who don’t Want it to

Why can’t our political leaders learn to live with success? In an era marked by cynicism about politics both parties managed to enact an initial COVID-19 relief package that if anything exceeded expectations. Last June Jason DeParle, summarized academic research on this act by quoting Columbia University’s Zachary Parolin: “Right now, the safety net is […]

Climate Crisis

The Lancet: Climate Crisis Menaces every Country with spike in Heat Strokes, Flood, Drought, and more Pandemics

The Conversation

By Celia McMichael, Ilan Kelman and Shouro Dasgupta, and Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson | – Climate change is resulting in profound, immediate and worsening health impacts, and no country is immune, a major new report from more than 120 researchers has declared. This year’s annual report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, released today, […]

Epidemics

First Americans on Pandemic Front Line: Navajo Nation warns hospitals at ‘breaking point’ in worsening surge

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Calah Schlabach | – ( Cronkite News ) – WASHINGTON – With a shortage of beds, oxygen and staff, the Navajo Nation can no longer depend on regional aid and is sending critical patients farther afield for care, officials reported Thursday. That news came as area health care workers and Navajo government officials warned […]

Epidemics

After the Coronavirus took down Trump in Election, could Israeli PM Netanyahu be Next?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mahmoud Mujadalah at the Israeli newspaper Arab48 reports that Benny Gantz, the Israeli minister of defense who was set to rotate in as prime minister after Binyamin Netanyahu next year this time, made a potentially game-changing announcement Tuesday. He said that his party list, the Blue and White, will vote […]

Donald Trump

Drinking the Kool-Aid: The Rise and Collapse of Trump’s Coronavirus Death Cult

Brian Glyn Williams

Dartmouth, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – In 1978 cult leader Jim Jones convinced 909 of his brainwashed followers in Jonestown, Guyana to drink cyanide-laced Kool Aid and kill themselves. Since that shocking collective suicide, the term “drinking the Kool Aid” has become a metaphor for anyone who has been brainwashed by someone else into […]

China

China beat the coronavirus with science and strong public health measures, not just with authoritarianism

The Conversation

By Elanah Uretsky | – I live in a democracy. But as Thanksgiving approaches, I find myself longing for the type of freedom I am seeing in China. People in China are able to move around freely right now. Many Americans may believe that the Chinese are able to enjoy this freedom because of China’s […]

Donald Trump

As Daily Cases climb toward 200K, “Trump is Playing Golf” (to the same accompaniment as “Whitey on the Moon”)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The G-20 summit, attended virtually by the leaders of the 20 countries with the largest gross domestic products, was orchestrated this year from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That is a scandal in itself, since the Saudi regime is responsible for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and […]

Epidemics

Who will be vaccinated first — and in what country? The upcoming fights over COVID vaccine

Reese Erlich

( 48hills.org) – In recent days, two US pharmaceutical companies announced that their COVID-19 vaccines could be available by December. US-based Pfizer, which partnered with the German-based BioNTech, said it has a 95 percent success rate during clinical trials. Biotechnology company Moderna also reported a vaccine with a 94.5 percent efficacy rate. CDC image Neither […]

Donald Trump

Is it the Trump-Monster or capitalist Plutocracy? With 250,000 Dead, why is the US Virus Response so Particularly Bad?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Holly Yan, Christina Maxouris and Theresa Waldrop at CNN report that the United States has passed the grim milestone of 250,000 deaths. Trump had predicted a worst case of 50,000 deaths last spring, but then Donald Trump could not find his ass with both hands. Nor is the worrisome death […]