Thom Haartmann, - Independent Media Institute / Raw Story
Stephan: Everyday I hear the fully vaccinated hosts of the Fox propaganda operation tell lie after lie about virtually everything they cover, particularly about Covid and vaccination. It amazes me that people being paid millions of dollars apiece each year seem to have no sense of integrity or honor. I know its for the money. But, when you do something day after day that you know to be dishonest and that is killing people by the thousands, how do you live with yourself?.
Covid patient loading into an ambulance Credit: Shutterstock
It happened three times yesterday, and I only watched or half-watched a few hours of TV news. It happens every day, it seems. Somebody wonders out loud (yesterday’s most prominent was Alex Witt with Dr. Anthony Fauci) why over 60 million Americans who are eligible to be vaccinated are still refusing — including hospital workers in some parts of the country.
Everybody treats it like it’s a confounding question with no easy answer. The actual answer, though, is pretty straightforward: the psychopaths running the rightwing media ecosystem dominated by Fox “News” and social media, and echoed by 1500 radio stations across the country, have decided people dying and being disabled is both profitable and politically advantageous to them.
When Joe Biden was elected president the Republican Party and their joined-at-the-hip rightwing media did a sudden about-face from praising Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” to encouraging their followers to remain unvaccinated so President Biden would struggle to get the economy back on sound footing.
That, they figured, was their best bet to take back […]
Stephan: If you want to know what is destroying American democracy this is it. The corruption of American politics stems from Citizen United. I will say again, what I have been saying for decades. Citizens United must be reversed, all elections should be publicly funded, and if a politician at any level of government takes a dime in contributions he or she should be removed from office immediately, indicted and tried for corruption. Nothing less will protect democracy in the U.S..
Peter Thiel’s right-wing bet: Tech tycoon spending millions to bankroll ‘Trump wing’ of GOP Fascist billionaire Peter Thiel Credit: Dan Taylor
Billionaire Republican donor Peter Thiel is bankrolling election conspiracists and primary challengers against Republicans who backed Donald Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including an Arizona Senate candidate who is literally on his payroll.
Thiel, the Facebook board member who co-founded PayPal and later the controversial data-mining company Palantir, has long been a top Republican benefactor, donating millions to GOP candidates and political action committees. But in the wake of Trump’s 2020 defeat, Thiel has grown more aggressive in his political investments, dropping more than $20 million to support two far-right Senate candidates and helping to fund primary challengers against Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and other Republicans who called for Trump’s removal after the deadly riot.
“He wants to be the patron of the Trump wing of the Republican Party,” said Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg reporter and author of
Stephan: The problem America faces is not that a couple of political streetwalkers like Manchin and Sinema are in office; they are the current members in the spotlight but far from the only or even worst corrupt politicians in Congress. The problem is the people of the United States who are now in large numbers voting their emotions not their rational thinking or even their own self-interest. The question we need to ask is: what has happened in the American culture that this situation is the present reality?
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) board an elevator after a meeting on Capitol Hill Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty
The head of a right-wing organization with ties to the Koch network offered words of encouragement to Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Thursday amid reports that she’s holding up her party’s budget reconciliation package over its proposed tax hikes on the rich and big businesses.
“It’s wrong that she is helping profitable big corporations avoid taxes.”
Citing two unnamed Senate Democratic aides, Insiderreported Thursday that “a major holdup” on ongoing talks over Democrats’ Build Back Better Act “is Sinema’s opposition to any tax increases for individuals and large corporations.”
“Her position threatens to deprive the package of over $700 billion in revenue to finance the bulk of President Joe Biden’s agenda,” Insider noted. “Biden has repeatedly promised his plan will be paid for and won’t add to the federal deficit.”
In response to Insider‘s story, which confirms earlier reporting from the New York Times, American Commitment president Phil Kerpen urged Sinema […]
Stephan: Do you think West Virginians will vote Joe Manchin back into office even though he is going to make their lives miserable? Will they even be able to process what he has done? To be honest I don't think so.
Destroyed homes in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., in 2016. Torrential rains caused the floods, which were blamed for 23 deaths and hundreds of ruined homes. Credit: Steve Helber/Associated Press
A spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin, Sam Runyon, said the senator “has long acknowledged the impacts of climate change in West Virginia. That is why he’s worked hard to find a path forward on important climate legislation that maintains American leadership in energy innovation and critical energy reliability.”
FARMINGTON, W.VIRGINIA — In Senator Joe Manchin’s hometown, a flood-prone hamlet of about 200 homes that hugs a curve on a shallow creek, the rain is getting worse.
Those storms swell the river, called Buffalo Creek, inundating homes along its banks. They burst the streams that spill down the hills on either side of this former coal-mining town, pushing water into basements. They saturate the ground, seeping into Farmington’s aging pipes and overwhelming its sewage treatment system.
Climate change is warming the air, allowing it to hold more moisture, which causes more frequent and intense rainfall. And no state in the contiguous United […]
Stephan: I have been warning you for years now about taking control of your environmental toxins because so much of what is sold in the form of what are called "household products" are, in fact, harmful to your wellbeing. Now the data shows using these things may even shorten your life.
Toxic household products Credit: CNN
Synthetic chemicals called phthalates, found in hundreds of consumer products such as food storage containers, shampoo, makeup, perfume and children’s toys, may contribute to some 91,000 to 107,000 premature deaths a year among people ages 55 to 64in the United States, a new study found.
People with the highest levels of phthalates had a greater risk of death from any cause, especially cardiovascular mortality, according to the study published Tuesday in the peer-reviewedjournal Environmental Pollution.
The study estimated those deaths could cost the US about $40 to $47 billion each year in lost economic productivity.
“This study adds to the growing data base on the impact of plastics on the human body and bolsters public health and business cases for reducing or eliminating the use of plastics,” said lead author Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics, environmental medicine and population health at NYU Langone Health in New York City.
Phthalates are known to interfere with the body’smechanism forhormone production, known as the endocrine system, and they are “linked with developmental, reproductive, brain, immune, […]
