Health Care

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The coronavirus statistics in both Iran and the United States are horrible. The US has the worst record on dealing with the pandemic in the industrialized world. One clue to why the two countries are doing so badly with regard to basic public health strategy may lie in the importance […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Health Insurance Plan benefits the 1% and Harms all the Rest of Us

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) –Considered a serious danger to the wealth of private corporations and individuals, the highly class-conscious corporate-run, profiteering U.S. business community seeks to contain and reduce the political power of the 99%. Toward this goal, President Trump and the GOP are attempting to terminate Obamacare (ACA) including health plan subsidies […]

China

China grows nearly 5%; Will historians look back at Trump’s disastrous Pandemic Response as the Moment Beijing Overtook the US?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even if Trump loses, he can go on screwing up the country for two and a half months thereafter, and it will take years to undo the damage he has done. Pandemics are the sort of thing you want to nip in the bud. If you let them go to […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Body Count in Historical Perspective: Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths on his Hands

Al Carroll

Alexandria, Va. (Special to Informed Comment) – Many presidential biographies are somewhere between pseudo profound and pure fluff, arguing presidents be judged by Hollywood-like silliness like “presidential bearing” and “leadership qualities.” In 2014, I wrote Presidents’ Body Counts, my book arguing presidents be judged based on their human rights records. How many lived or died […]

Health Care

Can Trump’s Plan to Steal your Social Security, Medicare be Stopped?

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans promoting the backlash against the federal government seek to return to an earlier, supposedly golden era in American history. By privatizing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while further lowering taxes on the top 1 percent income bracket, […]

Epidemics

America’s New Peculiar Institution: Health Care only for those who Can Afford it

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – The highly respected British medical journal, “The Lancet”, recently summarized the health insurance situation in the USA: “Although health care expenditure per capita is higher in the USA than in any other country, more than 37 million Americans do not have health insurance, and 41 million more have […]

Cults

Fundamentalist Pastor and Trumpie John Hagee, who sued over Pandemic Shutdown, Contracts COVID-19

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last summer, the mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nirenberg, ordered all schools closed until September 7 as a mitigation measure against the spread of the coronavirus. Texas had a major outbreak this summer, one of the country’s worst hot spots. Texas has had over 800,000 cases and 16,444 deaths. Fundamentalist […]

Authoritarianism

Surviving the long Trump Pandemic+ or, 210,000 didn’t Have to Die

Frida Berrigan

(Tomdispatch.com ) – After all these months and 210,000 deaths, you’d think I’d be used to it all, but I’m not. It doesn’t seem even a little normal yet. I’m still full of absences, missing so much I used to take for granted: hugs and handshakes, rooms crowded for funerals and weddings, potluck dinners and […]

Democratic Party

Trump Prospects Plummet as Public blames him for Illness, Independents desert him over Debate Bullying

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Those observers asking whether Trump would get a bounce of sympathy from falling ill with COVID-19, the way Ronald Reagan saw his popularity soar after he was shot and had to be hospitalized, now have their answer. No. An October 2-3 opinion poll conducted by Yahoo and YouGov from Friday-Saturday, […]