Steampunk Tendencies posted this to their Facebook page with no explanation so I have no idea what it is or where, but I'd sure like to see it.
"Under Pressure, the Biden Administration Rebrands Its Medicare Privatization Initiative: After quietly pushing an insurance-industry-backed Medicare privatization scheme, the Biden administration has come under fire from pro-Medicare activists. In response, the administration has rebranded the scheme — but left its privatizing substance intact. [...] Joe Biden seemed to be dangling a blade over the “direct contracting” program after a groundswell of opposition among both grassroots activists and progressives in Congress forced his hand. Officials began hinting that they would overhaul the program or even cancel it entirely, with those businesses set to profit from it working feverishly to prevent the latter outcome. For the past week, both the health care industry and advocates for public health care have been waiting anxiously to find out what the administration decided. Yesterday, they got their answer. In response to “feedback from stakeholders and participants,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the direct contracting program would be turned into something called ACO REACH (Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health). The question is, is this change enough to fix what worried public-health campaigners about direct contracting in the first place? The answer, they say, is no. 'We don't see anything other than a name change,' says Diane Archer, president of Just Care USA."
"Democrats Creating Their Own October Surprise: Imminent congressional inaction on Affordable Care Act subsidies will doom 14 million people, the party's midterm chances, and health care reform for a decade. Watching congressional Democrats these days feels like a painful, slow-motion car wreck. They are sleepwalking into a health care disaster that's entirely of their own making. With little debate or media focus, Democrats are on the verge of dooming millions of Americans to huge new health care bills, which will in turn serve to ruin any hope Democrats have of winning the midterms. And that will effectively destroy any chance of real health care reform for at least another decade."
Collected at Threadreader, a series of tweets from Matt Stoller: "1. Here's Apple CEO Tim Cook today arguing that antitrust laws against big tech are bad for privacy and bad for national security. In honor of his speech, I thought I'd do a little thread on just how bad these tech firms are for American security." And there are quite a few examples!
"These six corporations are financing an assault on reproductive rights in six states" — While publicly condemning the new anti-abortion laws, and boasting of their commitments to women's health, gender equality (or "equity"), and the empowerment of women, CVS, AT&T, Merck, Comcast, United Health, and Anheuser-Busch have all shoveled plenty of contributions to the legislators who pass the anti-choice legislation.
"Wall Street May Reap Billions From New York Dem's Reversal: City Comptroller Brad Lander pledged to disentangle retirement funds from risky private equity and fossil fuel investments — but now he's pushing to do the opposite. As the Biden Administration warns that workers' retirement funds may be getting fleeced by hedge funds and private equity firms, a top Democrat is reversing his own criticism of such investments and requesting authority to funnel billions of dollars of retiree savings to the private equity moguls. If that happens, it could mean a half-billion dollars of additional annual fees for a private equity industry that has produced some of the wealthiest people on the planet. [...] 'Private equity is inconsistent with the transparency obligations of public pensions,' said Siedle. 'There isn't a single public pension in this country that's knowledgeable about how to oversee or monitor private equity investments. They don't know what they're investing in, they don't know the fees they are paying, they don't know the risk they're taking on. When you see a push to increase private equity, what you're really seeing is a politicization of the investment process. The only reason to increase investments in private equity is to please donors."
"We Have New Evidence of Saudi Involvement in 9/11, and Barely Anyone Cares: The FBI has quietly revealed further evidence of Saudi government complicity in the September 11 attacks — and nothing's happened. here's a lot going on in the world right now, so it's not surprising some news slips through the cracks. Still, it's amazing that explosive new information about an allied government's complicity in one of the worst attacks on US soil in history has simply come and gone with barely any notice. Last week, the FBI quietly declassified a 510-page report it produced in 2017 about the 9/11 terrorist attack twenty years ago. The disclosure is in accordance with President Joe Biden's September 2021 executive order declassifying long-hidden government files about the attack, which many hoped would reveal what exactly US investigators knew about the Saudi Arabian government's possible involvement." So, a member of the Saudi government's spy organization was being paid by the Saudi royal family to hang out in the United States helping the 9/11 hijackers set themselves up and then the FBI and the Bush administration covered-up for him and now nobody cares about any of this. The same pressbots and pundits who went insane and screamed for blood in the wake of the attacks on 9/11 are just completely uninterested in who actually did it. And...why is that?
Video: Luke Savage and Emma Vigeland on "How 'The West Wing' Misled A Generation Of Liberals" — And why do Democrats talk like It's An Existential Threat and then behave like nothing unusual is going on and we don't have to do anything?
"Pentagon Drops Truth Bombs to Stave Off War With Russia: Leaked stories from the Pentagon have exposed how mainstream media reports Russia's conduct in the Ukraine war, in a bid to counter propaganda intended to get NATO into the conflict, writes Joe Lauria. The Pentagon has been engaged in a consequential battle with the U.S. State Department and the Congress to prevent a direct military confrontation with Russia, which could unleash the most unimaginable horror of war. President Joe Biden is caught in the middle of the fray. So far he is siding with the Defense Department, saying there cannot be any kind of NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft because “that's called World War III, okay? Let's get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine. “President Biden's been clear that U.S. troops won't fight Russia in Ukraine, and if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you'll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier this month. (The administration plan is to bring down the Russian government through a ground insurgency and economic war, not a direct military one.)" But everyone, including Pelosi and Schumer and the entire mass media have been vocally itching for war. The two Democratic leaders tamped it down after even Blinken backed off that line, but TV loves wars, and the din is loud. "But on Tuesday, the Pentagon took the bold step of leaking two stories to reporters that contradict those tales. 'Russia's conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader's strategic balancing act,' reported Newsweek in an article entitled, 'Putin's Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He's Holding Back. Here's Why.' The piece quotes an unnamed analyst at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) saying, 'The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.' A retired U.S. Air Force officer now working as an analyst for a Pentagon contractor, added: 'We need to understand Russia's actual conduct. If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict.'"
Pierce, "No Wonder Trump's Legal Beagles Fought So Hard to Keep These Emails Secret: John Eastman and the Camp Runamuck team were devising a plan of action in print. [...] First thing we do, let's indict all the lawyers. Eastman—and therefore, the legal representatives of Camp Runamuck—fought like wolverines chewing off their own legs to keep these communications away from the special committee appointed to investigate the events of January 6. Judge Carter's ruling did not merely declare Congress to be the winner in that particular struggle, it upped the stakes for the side that won. Carter did more than just decide the issue of the emails. He also explained why he was doing so, and he did that by treating the material as a road map for Congress—and the Department of Justice—to follow." Charlie is more optimistic than history can support, but someone really needs to spell out the difference between giving clients a good defense when they are accused of a crime and helping clients find quasi-legal ways to commit crime.
RIP: Eric Boehlert Dies: Media Critic For Media Matters & Salon, Founder Of Press Run Newsletter Killed In Bike Accident At 57: Eric Boehlert, a media critic devoted to calling out right-wing misinformation through his writing at Media Matters for America, Salon, Daily Kos and most recently as the founder of the Press Run website, died Monday in a bike accident. He was 57. His death was announced on Twitter today by journalist and friend Soledad O'Brien, who called Boehlert “a fierce and fearless defender of the truth.” Boehlert was struck by a train while biking in Montclair, New Jersey; Montclair police reported yesterday that a man riding a bicycle was struck and killed by a New Jersey Transit train in Montclair on Monday evening." His colleague, Atrios, wrote: "Very sad. I knew Eric some personally, working through Media Matters and otherwise, though we hadn't really had any personal contact in awhile. Nice guy, really got his journalism career boost exposing the various shenanigans at Clear Channel and then shifted into politics/political media coverage." I've spent many years watching Eric evolve and was pleased to see him breaking his assumptions in the last few years. Sorry he won't be putting those insights to use anymore.
RIP: Bobby Rydell, 'Wild One' Singer and 'Bye Bye Birdie' Star, Dead at 79: Bobby Rydell, one of the first music idols to spur teen fandom in the Fifties and Sixties, has died at age 79. His death was caused by complications from pneumonia, a rep for the artist confirmed in a statement. “He had the best pipes,” his good friend and radio legend Jerry Blavat told the Inquirer. “He could do Sinatra, he could do anything… He could do comedy. He played the drums. He was a great mimic… He could have been as big as Bobby Darin, but he didn't want to leave Philadelphia.”" Loved him as Hugo, but really loved to listen to him singing "Forget Him".
"Four-day week: What we do with our extra day off [...] Laura introduced a four-day week at the Stanton by Dale firm in January, making Friday a permanent day off for staff, who retained full pay. The firm had invested nearly £100,000 in new technology, which had helped drive production. Rather than making even more money, Laura decided to do something different."
"How the Minneapolis Foundation Bankrolls the Destruction of Public Schools: With hopes of creating an education “marketplace,” the business foundation floods the city with charter schools while vilifying teachers' unions. Over its 107-year existence, the Minneapolis Foundation has accumulated all the essential ingredients for a glossy resume. The foundation's website reverentially invokes its creation in 1915 by “a lawyer, two lumbermen and two bankers” who banded together to create “a wisely planned and enduring fabric” to benefit the community. It then lists an array of beloved Minnesota institutions and places the foundation has worked to found, preserve, or improve in some manner. From the first federal protection of the Boundary Waters in 1924 to the establishment of the Minnesota Orchestra in 1945 to the construction of the original Guthrie Theater (“A Theater for the People!”) in 1963, the foundation claims to have played a vital role. Today, the nonprofit grant-making machine, which boasts annual expenditures of $125 million, is helmed by former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. So when and why, exactly, did the Minneapolis Foundation start trying to kill the Minneapolis Public Schools?"
"Meet the Censored: Chris Hedges: Interview with the award-winning investigative reporter, now at Substack, who had six years of shows removed by YouTube This past weekend, celebrated journalist and author Chris Hedges woke up to find six years of episodes of his Russia Today show On Contact vanished from the show's account on YouTube. Though almost none of the shows referenced Russia or Vladimir Putin directly, and the few that did tended to be unflattering, his association with Russian state media was enough to erase hundreds of interviews about topics ranging from Julian Assange's imprisonment to censorship to police brutality to American war crimes in the Middle East."
Yes, they are still doing this stuff. "L.A. County Voting System Still Fails to Meet State Standards, County Clerk Smears Expert Critics: 'BradCast' 4/4/2022 [...] Back in 2020, Los Angeles County deployed a new, unverifiable touchscreen voting system called "Voting Solutions for All People" (or, VSAP) across the nation's most populous voting jurisdiction. Some ten years in development by the County's Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan, the new touchscreen Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) failed spectacularly in that year's Super Tuesday Presidential Primary, leading to long lines and questions about the results. The VSAP system had been conditionally certified by the Secretary of State just weeks before their first county-wide use, after state testing discovered about 30 different violations of California Voting System Standards." I seriously don't want to hear about "saving democracy" from Trump or the Russians when it's coming from people who ignore this kind of thing or, worse, shrug it off as conspiracy theory.
"Israel deliberately forgets its history: An Israeli historian suggests the diaspora was the consequence, not of the expulsion of the Hebrews from Palestine, but of proselytising across north Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East [...] But during the 1980s an earthquake shook these founding myths. The discoveries made by the “new archaeology” discredited a great exodus in the 13th century BC. Moses could not have led the Hebrews out of Egypt into the Promised Land, for the good reason that the latter was Egyptian territory at the time. And there is no trace of either a slave revolt against the pharaonic empire or of a sudden conquest of Canaan by outsiders. Nor is there any trace or memory of the magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon. Recent discoveries point to the existence, at the time, of two small kingdoms: Israel, the more powerful, and Judah, the future Judea. The general population of Judah did not go into 6th century BC exile: only its political and intellectual elite were forced to settle in Babylon. This decisive encounter with Persian religion gave birth to Jewish monotheism. Then there is the question of the exile of 70 AD. There has been no real research into this turning point in Jewish history, the cause of the diaspora. And for a simple reason: the Romans never exiled any nation from anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. Apart from enslaved prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even after the destruction of the second temple. Some converted to Christianity in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century Arab conquest. Most Zionist thinkers were aware of this: Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later president of Israel, and David Ben Gurion, its first prime minister, accepted it as late as 1929, the year of the great Palestinian revolt. Both stated on several occasions that the peasants of Palestine were the descendants of the inhabitants of ancient Judea (2)."
The Real 'Big Lie' Has Nothing to Do With Donald Trump: American working people have slogged through three crushing recessions, a worsening inequality that resulted in lower standard of living, and a grotesque pandemic that has exposed glaring inadequacies of our economic model. [...] That particular fabrication asserts that the economy is recovering and as the pandemic recedes a return to normal prosperity will benefit all working people. [...] The real "Big Lie" to manipulate and con working people from the middle working class and working class is not convincing when the numbers of our economic model are examined. For starters, the economy had a net loss of around 10 million jobs in 2020. It gained 6.5 million jobs in 2021. That's a loss of 3.5 million jobs. Biden's “recovery” is merely a reflection of the economic malaise of the last few years with significant losses during the pandemic. It is part of the “recovery” of the business cycle which is a historical component of our economic model. These “recoveries” usually result in less income and fewer good jobs for working people because the structure of our economic model remains intact." And then there are the real unemployment numbers, which aren't the ones you will see in the mass media.
Review, David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: 'The examples the authors cite persuasively debunk the now commonly accepted idea that there was only one overriding pattern in the evolution of government and social organization, and that it proceeded through a series of logical and ultimately inevitable phases to lead us into the modern world. They contest the deterministic view that certain events, such as the discovery of the benefits of agriculture or the creation of more efficient technology, left the societies that profited from them no other choice than to march forward towards an ever more sophisticated, technology-oriented civilization, transforming their institutions, cultures and relationships to accommodate and adapt to the supposed laws of the “brave, new world” thus unveiled."
Michael Dobson has posted a little tribute to Steve Stiles, who we still miss a lot.
"THE ART NOUVEAU ILLUSTRATIONS OF ALPHONSE MUCHA HD 1080p"
As a Steve Allen appreciator, I loved MST3K's The Steve-O-Meter.
Video: 1940s - Views of Los Angeles & San Francisco in color
Some photos of a neat building in Arkansas designed by a protegé of Frank Lloyd Wright, ThornCrown Chapel.
The Foundations, "Baby, Now That I've Found You"
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