Stephan: Could the far right view be any clearer? The people of Texas elected these incompetents and are now living with the consequences of those choices. That is the truth that dare not be spoken. We will see what they learned in 2022.
Former Republican Governor of Texas, and Secretary of Energy in the Trump cabinet
Rick Perry once wanted to get rid of the U.S. Department of Energy. Now, he’s apparently fine with temporarily ridding Texas of energy altogether.
As the former Republican governor of Texas and energy secretary under former President Donald Trump, Perry had a lot to say about the state’s ongoing blackouts amid an unprecedented winter storm. But even as it becomes clear Texas’ energy system needs a major overhaul, Perry said Texans would rather remain in the dark if it meant keeping the federal government out, he told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) office in a blog post published Wednesday.
Perry, like other conservatives, blamed Texas’ renewable energy sources for the outages, and alleged the Biden administration’s focus on decreasing fossil fuel dependence would make this happen again. Perry did note that natural gas supplies most of Texas’ power, not solar and wind, but still claimed Texas would refuse to adopt more of those renewable sources no matter how heavily the […]
Stephan: One of the main takeaways for me from this pandemic is how it has brought into focus our abysmal illness profit system. In America healthcare is about making profit, not fostering wellbeing. Very few Americans seem to realize that about one-third of emergency rooms in this country are not owned by the hospitals that house them, they are owned by three hedge funds. And the hospitals themselves, 20.2% are state-owned, 58.5% are non-profit and 21.3 are for-profit. Collectively this system has produced healthcare that ranks 37th in the world, one of the worst systems in the developed world, yet the most expensive system on earth.
Hopefully, the healthcare disaster the Covid-19 pandemic has produced will give the Biden administration the support they need to create universal birthright single-payer non-profit healthcare so that Americans can get the kind of healthcare other developed nations enjoy.
Private equity firm Leonard Green and other investors extracted $645 million from Prospect Medical before announcing a deal to sell it and leave it with $1.3 billion in financial obligations. Four states approved it — but Rhode Island is holding out.
In a David-and-Goliath battle, a group of Rhode Island officials and a union for hospital workers have so far stymied a multi-billion-dollar private equity fund’s attempt to unload its controlling stake in a national for-profit hospital chain. Investors led by the private equity firm, Leonard Green & Partners, previously extracted $645 million in dividends from the investment, and the firm now seeks to leave behind another $1.3 billion in financial obligations at the chain. In the face of more than a year of often-vehement public opposition in Rhode Island, the hospital chain suddenly agreed in the final days of December to pay $27.25 million to resolve a group of lawsuits they had previously refused to settle. But a Jan. 29 deadline for the state to approve the deal has been extended indefinitely and other obstacles remain.
Stephan: The United States is the most expensive nation on earth to have a baby. Not by a little bit but by multiples. The system is crazy, and benefits no one but the profit takers.With climate change growing worse each year, with more pandemics inevitable as viruses and bacteria mutate the United States has reached the moment of truth. We are either going to make healthcare a first priority instead of being a profit system or we are going to see endless suffering and death, and economic collapse.
I’m delighted to announce my partner has been struck with a short-term disability. She is pregnant. Which, in the capitalist utopia that is the US, is pretty much the same thing. It’s the only developed country without mandated paid maternity leave; in some states, however, short-term disability insurance covers your income for a few weeks while you recover from the miracle of birth.
You know what is really a miracle? The fact that anyone gives birth in the US at all. (And, in fact, not many people do: the birthrate has plummeted.) It doesn’t just have the worst parental leave in the rich world, it is also the most expensive country in which to have a baby. It is hard to pin down exact costs because they vary wildly depending on your location and your health insurance. However, even with decent insurance, you can expect to pay a few thousand dollars out-of-pocket for an uncomplicated birth. Indeed, the cost of delivering a regular American baby is more than that of delivering a Royal baby in the UK.
Stephan: What kind of country does not make arrangements for the care of its elderly. It is a measure of how out of order American society is that we do not do this. Instead, we do this.
Employees of LHC Group describe a business model that prioritized profits and compromised patient care. Soon they reached a breaking point: “It just didn’t make me feel right, doing what I did.”
A few years ago, Stella started working as a nursing assistant at Almost Family in Chilton, Wisconsin. She liked the job at first—the hours were flexible, and she had a good connection with her patients. She would spend a few hours at each of her patients’ homes, cleaning up and helping them get dressed or take baths.
When Stella moved from Chilton to Green Bay to start nursing school, she decided to keep working for the company at a new location there. But upon transferring to the new agency, she said her workload increased: She recalled that the company expanded her patient roster from two or three patients to seven or eight, and since she didn’t have the use of a car, she had to shorten her visits with one patient in order to get to the next. She found herself working as many as 65 hours a week, […]
Stephan: The Republicans in the Georgia State Legislature are trying to rig their government to protect Trump; it really is that bad, they are that willing to destroy democracy. But the crimes are so obvious I don't think they will succeed and now Lindsey Graham very appropriately is being dragged in. I think we are going to spend the next several months searching for accountability, and I hope we find it and hold Trump and all his orcs accountable.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham
In Georgia, a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s post-election conduct is expanding to include close Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, according to a Friday report by the Washington Post.
The investigation, which was opened by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis earlier this month, will probe whether Trump — and now Graham — violated state law in the course of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results in Georgia following the 2020 presidential election.
According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Graham — a Republican from South Carolina — asked Raffensperger in November whether the secretary of state had the power to throw out all mail-in ballots in certain Georgia counties, a move that could potentially have tipped the state, and its 16 electoral votes, to Trump in the November election.
Raffensperger was reportedly “stunned” by Graham’s question and rejected the idea, which would have been beyond his power as secretary of state. After multiple recounts, President Joe Biden ultimately won Georgia by 11,779 votes, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee […]
