As healthcare providers across the U.S. desperately attempt to treat a rapidly growing number of patients with the coronavirus, a pharmaceutical company with ties to the Trump administration has been granted exclusive status for a drug it is developing to treat the illness—a potential windfall for the company that could put the medication out of reach for many Americans. Continue reading
The genie has escaped from the bottle, revealing the deep injustices and cruelties that are embedded in US capitalism and its warped relationship to the peoples it rules, and the world. Continue reading
In a surprising move, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on February 29 that he will be re-opening his country’s border to Europe, thus allowing tens of thousands of mostly Syrian refugees into Greece and other European countries. Continue reading
Suddenly, “social distancing” is our new national etiquette, abruptly supplanting handshakes, hugs, gatherings, and other forms of ingrained communal behavior by us humans. Continue reading
WASHINGTON DC (The Last American Vagabond)—Last week, Newsweek published a report entitled “Inside The Military’s Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government,” which offers vague descriptions of different military plans that could be put into effect if the civilian government were to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the potential of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to result in such a scenario. Continue reading
Dan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, told Fox News’ disproportionately older audience Monday night that he and other American seniors would be willing to risk dying from the coronavirus in order to ensure that the economy doesn’t slide into a serious recession. Continue reading
For decades, critics of single-payer health care have raised the menace of rationed care, long waits, and “death panels.” Continue reading
Every day now we’re waking up into an extreme real-life nightmare, while responses are still routinely lagging far behind what’s at stake. Urgency is reality. The horrific momentum of the coronavirus is personal, social and political. In those realms, a baseline formula is “passivity = death.” The imperative is to do vastly better. Continue reading
The politics surrounding the arrival of coronavirus is on the way to becoming heavily reactionary. Its chief articulators are primarily governments and the corporate media, both of which enjoy enormous clout, and will use it effectively to ensure that their own private agendas are royally served. Continue reading
The US airline companies have bankrupted themselves by buying back their stock in an enrichment scheme for CEOs and board members. With the impact of the virus on their revenues, Congress is handing them a $50 billion bailout. Instead of being bailed out they should be nationalized. Continue reading
Tucked inside Senate Republicans’ gargantuan coronavirus stimulus package is a provision that progressives are warning could significantly damage Social Security’s funding in the short-term and empower right-wing lawmakers to make even deeper cuts to the vital program in the future. Continue reading
Here we go again: Another financial bubble burst and another financial crisis threatening to disrupt the real economy! This time the trigger is the health pandemic of the coronavirus crisis, the most serious in a generation, which is paralyzing the real economy and triggering crashes in the financial sector. Continue reading
In a world where fear of the unknown hangs over the collective consciousness of entire populations the best and the worst of human nature is on display. In Britain small stores engaged in price gouging are being named and shamed on social media — one shop was selling single toilet rolls £10 — while the ‘I’m all right Jack’ brigade are stripping supermarket shelves bare without thought for the needs of the elderly or parents with newborns. Continue reading
The United States president, Donald Trump, is now proclaiming, stands at “war.” We are facing, in the novel coronavirus, “an invisible enemy” that could claim the lives of more Americans than every shooting war America has ever fought. Continue reading
In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good. Continue reading
A crisis, according to self-help and leadership books, reveals much about a person’s character. The same can be said of a nation’s character. Continue reading
The Department of Justice is using the coronavirus outbreak to ask Congress for sweeping emergency powers including suspending habeas corpus during an emergency, a power grab that was denounced by civil liberties advocates. Continue reading
Leaning on sober-minded experts in infectious diseases at his daily news conferences, Trump is frantically trying to look good. But the old delusionary Trump keeps resurfacing. On Monday, he rated his coronavirus performance at a perfect ten. On Tuesday, he lied to the public about his knowing it was a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.” The facts are just the opposite. On February 28, Trump called COVID-19 a Democratic hoax (See the March 18, 2020 article in the New York Times). Continue reading
A number of years ago, I wrote a documentary about John Gardner, the remarkable public servant who served as President Lyndon Johnson’s secretary of health, education and welfare. He later founded the citizen’s group Common Cause and was, by the way, a liberal Republican, if you can remember a time when such people existed. We can thank him for the implementation of many of LBJ’s Great Society programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. Continue reading
“I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said in April 2007, soon before he was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in the 2008 elections. Continue reading
If you are a saver in a money market account or in a bank, you’ve already noticed your dwindling interest income as interest rates have been at their lowest in modern American history. Well, brace yourself. Your saving account has just become little more than a lock box, thanks to the supreme dictatorship of the Federal Reserve. Continue reading
COVID-19 is not just a health emergency. It has exposed the causes of inequality and suffering in this country. Continue reading
What do zombies have to do with the U.S. government’s plans for dealing with a coronavirus outbreak? Continue reading
The public health and economic crises we’re experiencing are closely related. They reveal in stark terms the dangerous mythology of trickle-down self-sufficiency and the need for policies that respond to the real needs of people who are or will soon be affected. Continue reading
While the world is consumed with the terrifying coronavirus pandemic, today, March 19, the Trump administration will be marking the 17th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by ramping up the conflict there. After an Iran-aligned militia allegedly struck a U.S. base near Baghdad on March 11, the U.S. military carried out retaliatory strikes against five of the militia’s weapons factories and announced it is sending two more aircraft carriers to the region, as well as new Patriot missile systems and hundreds more troops to operate them. This contradicts the January vote of the Iraqi Parliament that called for U.S. troops to leave the country. It also goes against the sentiment of most Americans, who think the Iraq war was not worth fighting, and against the campaign promise of Donald Trump to end the endless wars. Continue reading
The United States’ National Security Strategy is based on foundational Instruments of National Power (INP). The INP consists of Diplomacy, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, Law Enforcement, Information. Combined with the INP’s support, they combine to protect an economy and society that has an annual Gross Domestic Product of nearly $20 trillion (USD) and a per capita income of almost $60 thousand according to the CIA’s World Factbook. In that publication, the CIA notes that “US firms are at or near the forefront in technological advances, especially in computers, pharmaceuticals, and medical, aerospace, and military equipment…” Continue reading
Dr. Anthony S Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and just about the only official in the Trump administration trusted to tell the truth about the coronavirus, said last Thursday: “The system does not, is not really geared to what we need right now … It is a failing, let’s admit it.” Continue reading
Western medicine is predicated on the “germ theory of disease.” That’s what it sounds like: the theory that germs like bacteria and viruses cause disease. Continue reading
There’s a short-circuit in the political convictions of some progressive-minded voters these days. Continue reading
The COVID-19, or coronavirus, pandemic is far from the first proof of how intertwined we are as a global community. The climate crisis and the refugee crisis have long been glaring examples that the wars or CO2 emissions on one continent risk the lives and well-being of people on another continent. Continue reading
Donald Trump is but a symptom of a larger disease. That disease is American imperial arrogance, and it has been on full display as COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the world and the American mainland. The potential lethality of COVID-19 is exponentially more dangerous when combined with the hubris of the American imperial order and its hyper-capitalist economic foundation. The U.S.’s response to the virus lags far behind the rest of the world. A deep thirst for profit among powerful elites dictates all social policies and organizations in the United States and this thirst has deadly consequences. Continue reading
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Now is the time to cancel sanctions on Iran
Posted on March 26, 2020 by Brian Cloughley
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has often declared that he considers himself to be a devout evangelical Christian, and in November 2019 told the New York Times Magazine that the Bible “informs everything I do.” Continue reading →