Monday

Interesting

Going Viral? 


Social Security

These 7 Social Security myths just aren’t true, no matter how often you hear them


Health Care

We’re Getting Ripped Off


American Corrupitalism

Hunter Biden’s Corruption


Israeli Elections

Why Israel is struggling to find a way out of Its Political Deadlock - A lot in here reminds me of our situation over here in the US.

..In political terms, there is nothing divided about Israel. In this month’s general election, 90 per cent of Israeli Jews voted for parties that identify as being either on the militaristic, anti-Arab right or on the religious, anti-Arab far-right.

.. All three support the entrenchment of the occupation and annexation of parts of the West Bank; all three think the settlements are justified and necessary; all demand that the siege of Gaza continue; all view the Palestinian leadership as untrustworthy; and all want neighbouring Arab states cowering in fear.

.. There is one significant but hardly insumountable difference. Gantz thinks it is important to maintain bipartisan US support for Israel’s belligerent occupation while Netanyahu has preferred to throw Israel’s hand in with Donald Trump and the Christian religious right.

.. But the problem is that Likud’s members are in absolute thrall to their leader. The thought of losing him terrifies them. Likud now looks more like a one-man cult than a political party.

Media- Covering Popular Uprisings

US media only report on protests against governments we don't support. There have been violent protests in Iraq for the last few days but US media has ignored them like they ignored the French Yellow Vest Movement and the recent protests against al-Sisi in Egypt.

Iraq protests: Death toll rises to 20 as unrest spreads in south

The protesters are mostly "angry young people who are not aligned to any political or religious party", Khan said. "They are simply very frustrated at the fact that they don't have jobs," he said.

Trump

Short and on-point: In The Year Of the Whistle-Blower. Or How The Game Is Played.



Media - Health Care Propaganda

Betsy McCaughey - Is a conservative hack who must think her readers are stupid as hell.

I one paragraph she says we currently spend 3.5 trillion on health care

Truth: $23 billion is a minuscule 0.65% of the $3.5 trillion Americans spend on health care. Zeroing out all insurance company profits wouldn’t make a dent in the nation’s medical costs.

In the very next paragraph she says medicare for all would be between 3 and 4 trillion per year (actually 3.2 trillion is the estimated cost) and we just can't afford that.

So where will the money come from? Warren backs Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan, which Sanders estimates will cost $3 trillion to $4 trillion a year, about as much as the entire US budget. To raise that much money, all taxpayers, not just the rich, would have to hand over a gut-wrenching share of their income to Uncle Sam. 

So in Betsy's bizarro world, we can afford the health care mess we have now but we can't afford to cover everyone, end medical bankruptcies, and free workers from employee based health care for basically the same cost.

She should be banished from the US media machine.