Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

F. Douglas Stephenson

Authoritarianism
End the "Citizens United" Ruling with a "Democracy for All Amendment"

End the “Citizens United” Ruling with a “Democracy for All Amendment”

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Fl. (Special to Informed Comment) – In the United States government has been privatized by the Citizens United ruling of the SCOTUS. Government is now really up for sale and auctioned off to the highest campaign contributors.The Supreme Court ‘Citizen’s United’ decision opened the floodgates for big money in our politics, allowing giant corporations […]

Drugs
Big Pharma spent more on Stock Buybacks and Dividends than on Research and Development even during COVID

Big Pharma spent more on Stock Buybacks and Dividends than on Research and Development even during COVID

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – The 14 largest publicly-traded pharmaceutical companies spent $747 billion on stock buybacks and dividends from 2012 through 2021 — substantially more than the $660 billion they spent on research and development. So argue economists William Lazonick, professor emeritus of economics at University of Massachusetts, and Öner Tulum, a […]

Corporations
Parasitic Private Equity is Consuming U.S. Health Care from the Inside Out

Parasitic Private Equity is Consuming U.S. Health Care from the Inside Out

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Fl. (Special to Informed Comment) – Private equity has succeeded in depicting itself as part of the productive economy of health care services. even as it is increasingly being recognized as being parasitic. The essence of this toxic parasitism is not only to drain the host’s nourishment, but also to dull the host’s brain […]

Health
How Medicare for All would also be a Huge Investment in America's Mental Health

How Medicare for All would also be a Huge Investment in America’s Mental Health

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) — The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was supposed to contain costs and make insurance for health / mental health care affordable. It did bring coverage to 20 million but 30 million remain uninsured. Data indicate that the bad outweighs the good. It’s too expensive, unsustainable, overly complex and bureaucratic. […]

Health
Why we Should Celebrate Medicare's 57th Birthday by Enacting Medicare for All

Why we Should Celebrate Medicare’s 57th Birthday by Enacting Medicare for All

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) — On July 30. 1965, Congress enacted Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Medicare Act into law and created two new programs, Medicare for […]

Health Care
Medicare still Superior at Age 57

Medicare still Superior at Age 57

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida — On July 30, 1965, US President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Medicare Act into law. The law created two new programs, Medicare for those who had reached the social security retirement age of 65 years, and Medicaid for those whose incomes were below specific levels. In the long history of struggles to […]

Guns
People Die as Weapons Industry Profits

People Die as Weapons Industry Profits

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – Citizens are waking up to the fact that so many politicians can be so easily bought by the weapons industry, an industry that doesn’t care how many people must die to protect their huge profits. SafeHome.org reports that after a record year in 2020, gun sales in the […]

Health
Is the Government Stealthily Privatizing Medicare without Telling You?

Is the Government Stealthily Privatizing Medicare without Telling You?

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – ALERT TO ALL ENROLLEES IN THE TRADITIONAL MEDICARE PROGRAM : The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to move all those in Traditional Medicare into a deceptively innocent “care relationship” with third party, for profit private middlemen without seniors’ knowledge or consent, and without congressional oversight. […]

Addiction
Opioid Crisis:  Purdue Pharma/ Sackler Family Fails in End Run around Justice

Opioid Crisis: Purdue Pharma/ Sackler Family Fails in End Run around Justice

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – In a seismic victory for justice and accountability that re-opens the deeply flawed recent September, 2020 settlement of the Purdue pharma bankruptcy case, the Sackler family will be forced to confront the pain and devastation they have allegedly caused. Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for […]

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Page 5
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Israel's Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations
  • A Pariah State? Western Nations Sanction Israeli Cabinet Members
  • Israel: Will Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Opposition to Conscription Bring down Netanyahu's Gov't
  • Women's Cancer Rates are Rising in the Oil Gulf: is Global Heating causing it?
  • Iran's Hypersonic Missiles Hit Israeli Refinery, Military Sites, as Israel does the same to Tehran

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved