, - National Center for Coverage Innovation at Families USA
Stephan: It suprises me how little media coverage the dramatic loss of health insurance being experienced by Americans is generating. It is yet another aspect of the utter failure of U.S. the illness profit system to deal with the pandemic and its effects.
Results in Brief » An estimated 5.4 million workers are becoming uninsured because of job losses they experienced from February to May of this year. » These estimated increases in the number of uninsured adults would be 39% higher than any annual increase ever recorded. The highest previous increase took place over the one-year period from 2008 to 2009, when 3.9 million nonelderly adults became uninsured.
» Nearly half (46%) of the increases in the uninsured resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crash have occurred in five states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, and North Carolina
» In eight states 20% or more of adults are now uninsured: Texas, where nearly three in ten adults under age 65 are uninsured (29%); Florida (25%); Oklahoma (24%); Georgia (23%); Mississippi (22%); Nevada (21%); North Carolina (20%); and South Carolina (20%). All but Oklahoma are also among the 15 states with the country’s highest spike in new COVID-19 cases during the week ending on July 12.
» Five states have experienced increases in the number of uninsured adults that exceed 40%: Massachusetts, where the number […]
Roberto Stefan Foa and Jonathan Wilmot, Lecturer in politics at the University of Melbourne | Founder and CEO of xAI Asset Management - Foreign Policy
Stephan: Since American mass media doesn't really cover international news on a regular basis anymore, it's not surprising that this major trend about wealth inequality has gone almost entirely unremarked, although I have written about it a number of times. But I am not the only one who sees this as an issue of real concern. Here from the major American foreign policy journal, Foreign Policy, is a good exegetic essay on this trend.
A woman holds an electoral map as voting results come in at Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s election night event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Nov. 8, 2016 in New York City. Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty
In 2014, the Hill newspaper rated Minnesota the second-most-liberal U.S. state. For decades, Minnesotans had reliably supported Democrats in the House, in the Senate, and for the presidency—in Ronald Reagan’s landslide presidential reelection of 1984, it was the only state in the country to support his opponent, former Minnesota Sen. Walter Mondale.
Yet in 2016, America’s second-most-liberal state did something unexpected. As the presidential campaign rolled on, Donald Trump picked up a surge of support, drawing level with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. In the end, Trump bettered Clinton in 78 of the state’s 87 counties. While Clinton eked out a narrow victory in the state by a 45,000-vote margin, it came almost entirely from the state’s largest city, Minneapolis.
On the morning of Nov. 9, 2016, progressives in Minneapolis woke up to find themselves on a lonely island of […]
Stephan: Trump has resurrected Sebastian Gorka, pulling him from a grave somewhere, and appointed him to the National Security Education Board. How can that be? The man, even by Trump standards is an outstandingly vile orc from the rightwing sewage pit. The answer I think is that Trump's most dominant personality aspect is his obsession with wreaking vengeance against anyone who does not support him. I think he realizes he is probably going to lose, and so he is going to use the rest of his time in office essentially punishing Americans for his loss. Have you noticed that everyone he appoints is a grifter, corrupt, a scumbag, or all three? They will destroy the institutions to which they are appointed from the inside. So take that America. You didn't love me so I am going to screw you big time.
Sebastian Gorka
He’s been called a “fish-oil salesman,” a “terrible scholar,” and a “fake terrorism expert,” and has been accused of having ties to a neo-Nazi group but on Tuesday President Donald Trump nominated Sebastian Gorka to become a member of the prestigious National Security Education Board. The term is for four years.
Gorka, supposedly a “counterterrorism adviser,” spent about seven months as part of the nascent Trump administration, serving as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Strategist but ultimately “was unable to get clearance for the National Security Council,” the AP reported in May of 2017.
While working in the Trump White House Foreign Policy published an article titled, “Sebastian Gorka May Be a Far-Right Nativist, but for Sure He’s a Terrible Scholar.” That makes it challenging to defend placing Gorka on the National Security Education Board, which have “Cabinet-level” status, according to its own website.
Board members “include experts from non-profit organizations and academia,” and currently “include representatives from the Department […]
Stephan:
Today as the nation's economy is crashing, as 39 states are experiencing Covid-19 surges so great that local health care systems are collapsing, as millions of American children are facing food stress, while their parents are weeks away from being evicted, losing their cars, and going bankrupt, I have decided to devote today's edition of SR to where the billions of our tax dollars have gone instead of going to ordinary Americans.
We are in the midst of a catastrophe created by the corruption, and incompetence of the Trump administration, the silence and ineptitude of the Congress, and the complete moronic incompetence of Republican governors. But also, importantly, this situation is due to the utter stupidity of a large percentage of Americans themselves. And it is all getting worse, not better. Meanwhile, Trump has a 40% approval rating.
Today I saw this Trumpian support play out in the real world. I went to the pharmacy to pick something up, and as I was going into the store a White woman looking to be in her 50s, a "Karen" in the parlance of the day was just in front of me. She was not wearing a mask but did have a little label pasted on her chest, that she had downloaded from some website, saying she was an American and was not required to wear a mask As she tried to enter the store manager stopped her, and told her it was the store's policy that everyone wear a mask. She pointed to the label on her chest and said she was an American and she was exercising her rights. He politely told her he did not care about her label. And that if she had no mask she could not enter. She became agitated and rude, but he was unyielding and she finally stormed off, cursing him as she walked away.
I realized as I watched this little scene that the Great Schism Trend about which I have written on multiple occasions (see SR archives), has reached a level that I have never seen before, not even at the height of the anti-Viet Nam War movement and that the November election, at both the presidential and congressional level, is going to determine what kind of country America will be going forward.
Stephan: It should come as no surprise that the Kushners and Trump families, and their cronies, are raking in buckets of your tax dollars, but even saying that the scale is gobsmacking. Children may be hungry, elders may living day to day, and your brother or sister may be on the verge of losing their homes, but Trumpian grifters couldn't care less; they are just trying to get every dime they can. Here is some data making this point.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner attends a meeting with President Donald Trump and several CEOs of major banks discussing the coronavirus response during a meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House on March 11, 2020 in Washington, D.C. Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty
The Kushner family, large chains backed by private equity, Wall Street investors, Kanye West, members of Congress, and the law firm that represented President Donald Trump during the Mueller probe were among the thousands of beneficiaries of a Covid-19 relief program aimed at rescuing struggling small businesses and keeping workers employed, according to new federal data released Monday.
While the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) data disclosure reveals just a fraction of recipients of forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, critics voiced concern that large, wealthy firms were able to readily access millions of dollars in relief funds as more vulnerable companies frequently received less money than they applied for—or nothing at all.
“We cannot allow those small businesses that were grossly underfunded or disadvantaged by the program to disappear and not have their stories told and rectified.” —John […]
